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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38819-8.txt b/38819-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88aa4b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/38819-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6211 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Behind the Mirrors, by Clinton W. Gilbert + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Behind the Mirrors + The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington + +Author: Clinton W. Gilbert + +Release Date: February 10, 2012 [EBook #38819] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEHIND THE MIRRORS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + BEHIND THE MIRRORS + + THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISINTEGRATION AT WASHINGTON + + By the Author of "The Mirrors of Washington" + + + Le métier superieur de la critique, ce + n'est pas même, comme le proclamait + Pierre Bayle, de semer des doubtes; + il faut aller plus loin, il faut détruire. + + DE GOURMONT + + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + The Knickerbocker Press + 1922 + + Copyright, 1922 + by + G. P. Putnam's Sons + + Made in the United States of America + + + + +[Illustration: PRESIDENT WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING] + + + + +FOREWORD + + +"A book like the _Mirrors of Downing Street_ is well enough. It is the +fashion to be interested in English notables. But that sort of thing +won't do here. The American public gets in the newspapers all it wants +about our national politicians. That isn't book material." + +An editor said that just a year ago when we told him of the plan for the +_Mirrors of Washington_. And, frankly, it seemed doubtful whether +readers generally cared enough about our national political +personalities to buy a book exclusively concerned with them. + +But they did. The _Mirrors of Washington_ became an instantaneous +success. It commanded almost unprecedented attention. It was heartily +damned and vociferously welcomed. By the averagely curious citizen, +eager for insight behind the gilded curtains of press-agentry and +partisanship, it was hailed as a shaft of common-sense sunlight thrown +into a clay-footed wilderness of political pap. And close to one hundred +thousand copies were absorbed by a public evidently genuinely interested +in an uncensored analysis of the people who are running us, or ruining +us, as individual viewpoint may determine. + +The _Mirrors of Washington_ was by way of being a pioneer, at least for +America. Overseas, it is habitual enough to exhibit beneath the literary +microscope the politically great and near-great, and even to dissect +them--often enough without anæsthesia. To our mind, such critical +examination is healthily desirable. Here in America, we are +case-hardened to the newspapers, whose appraisal of political personages +is, after all, pretty well confined to the periods of pre-election +campaigning. And we are precious little influenced by this sort of +thing; the pro papers are so pro, and the anti papers so anti, that few +try to determine how much to believe and how much to dismiss as routine +partisan prevarication. + +But a book! Political criticism, and personality analyses, frozen into +the so-permanently-appearing dignity of a printed volume--that is +something else again! Even a politician who dismisses with a smile or a +shrug recurrent discompliments in the news columns or the anonymous +editorial pages of the press, is tempted to burst into angry protest +when far less bitter, far more balanced criticism of himself is voiced +in a book. A phenomenon, that, doubtless revisable as time goes on and +the reflections of more book-bound Mirrors brighten the eyes of those +who read and jangle the nerves of those who run--for office. + +_Behind the Mirrors_ is another such book. It delves into the +fundamentals at Washington. It is concerned with political tendencies as +well as political personalities. It presents what impresses us as a +genuinely useful and brilliant picture of present-day governmental +psychology and functioning. It is a cross section of things as they are. + +The picture behind the mirrors is not as pretty as it might be. Probably +the way to make it prettier is to let ample light in upon it so that the +blemishes, discerned, may be rectified; and to impress those responsible +for its rehabilitation with the necessity of taking advantage of the +opportunities that are theirs. + +When President Eliot of Harvard presented to a certain Senator an +honorary degree, he described with inimitable charm and considerable +detail that Senator's literary achievements; and then he mentioned his +political activities, ending with substantially these words: "A man with +great opportunities for public service still inviting him." + +The invitation yet holds good. Acceptances are still in order. + + G. P. P. + + NEW YORK, + June, 1922. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--PRESIDENT HARDING AND THE CLOCK. GOD'S TIME AS IT WAS + IN THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 3 + + II.--GOD'S TIME AS IT IS; AN INGERSOLL THAT REQUIRES MUCH + WINDING 21 + + III.--GOLDEN WORDS TURN TO BRASS 36 + + IV.--THE SUPER-PRESIDENT GOES DOWN IN THE GENERAL SMAS 61 + + V.--LOOKING FOR ULTIMATE WISDOM--IN THE BOSOM OF THÉRÈSE 80 + + VI.--SHALL WE FIND OUR SALVATION SITTING, LIKE MR. MELLON, + ON A PILE OF DOLLARS 101 + + VII.--THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE + BOTTLE 119 + + VIII.--THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR OF MUCH LITTLENESS 142 + + IX.--CONGRESS AT LAST WITH SOMETHING TO DO HAS NO ONE TO + DO IT 156 + + X.--INTERLUDE. INTRODUCING A FEW MEMBERS OF THE UPPER + HOUSE BOOBOISIE AND SOME OTHERS 173 + + XI.--A PEAK OF REALITY THRUSTS UP ON THE LEVEL PLAIN OF + SHAMS 204 + + XII.--THE HAPPY ENDING 226 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + + PAGE + +PRESIDENT WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING _FRONTISPIECE_ + +UNCLE SAM'S CONFERENCE 26 + +REPRESENTATIVE FRANK W. MONDELL OF WYOMING 44 + +LORD RIDDELL 96 + +ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 112 + +ARTHUR BALFOUR 130 + +ATTORNEY-GENERAL H. M. DAUGHERTY 138 + +SENATOR JAMES E. WATSON OF INDIANA 160 + +REPRESENTATIVE FREDERICK H. GILLETT OF MASSACHUSETTS 166 + +SENATOR JOSEPH S. FRELINGHUYSEN OF NEW JERSEY 180 + +SENATOR HARRY S. NEW OF INDIANA 188 + +SENATOR JAMES W. WADSWORTH OF NEW YORK 190 + +SENATOR WILLIAM M. CALDER OF NEW YORK 192 + +SENATOR ARTHUR I. CAPPER OF KANSAS 216 + +GRAY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC 222 + + + + +BEHIND THE MIRRORS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PRESIDENT HARDING AND THE CLOCK. GOD'S TIME AS IT WAS IN THE AMERICAN +POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS + + +President Harding had recently to decide the momentous question whether +we should have daylight saving in Washington. He decided it in a +perfectly characteristic way, perfectly characteristic of himself and of +our present political division and unsureness. He ruled that the city +should go to work and quit work an hour earlier, but that it should not +turn back the hands of the clock, should not lay an impious finger upon +God's Time. + +That this straddle is typical of our President needs no argument--he +"has to be so careful," as he once pathetically said--but that it is +symptomatic of the present American political consciousness perhaps +needs elucidation. + +The clock is one of the problems left to us by the Great War, one of +the innumerable problems thus left to us; it involves our whole attitude +toward men and things. + +It represents, rather literally, Mechanism. In the war we adopted +perforce the creed that man was sufficiently master of his own destiny +to adapt Mechanism to his own ends; he could lay a presumptuous hand +upon God's Time. But in peace shall he go on thus boldly? Or shall he +revert to the good old days, the days of McKinley, when the clock was +sacred? Think of all the happiness, all the prosperity, that was ours, +all the duty done and all the destiny abundantly realized, before man +thought to lay a hand upon the clock! + +The question what the limits to human government are is involved. What +may man attempt for himself and what should he leave to the great +Mechanism which has, upon the whole, run the world so well, to the Sun +in its courses, to progress, to inevitability? After all the clock was +in the beginning, is now and ever shall be--unless we meddle with +it--and before its cheerful face America was built from a wilderness +into a vast nation, creating wealth, so as to be the third historic +wonder of the ages--the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was +Rome, the dollars that are America. + +And not only are we divided as to the limits of government, but where +shall Mr. Harding look for authority to guide him with respect to +clocks? To his party? This is a party government, you remember. But his +party speaks with no clear voice about clocks or about anything else. To +business? Business has only one rule--more clocks in government and less +government in clocks. But business bows to the public. To public opinion +then? The public is divided about clocks; we tend to grow class +conscious about clocks. And clamorously amid all these authorities is +heard the voice of the Farm Bloc exclaiming: "Don't touch God's Time." + +So it is decided that Washington may save daylight and save the clock +too, a double saving, a most happy compromise. If all questions touching +Mechanism could only be solved in the direction of such splendid +economies! + +I listened a year ago to a most unusual Fourth of July oration. The +speaker, like most of us in this period of breakup following the Great +War, was rather bewildered. He had, moreover, his private reasons for +feeling that life was not easily construed. An illness, perhaps mortal, +afflicted him. Existence had been unclouded until this last cloud came; +why was it to end suddenly and without reason? He had gone through the +Great War a follower of Mr. Wilson's, to see the world scoffing at the +passionate faith it had professed a few months before and sneering at +the leaders it had then exalted. He had echoing in his mind the fine war +phrases, "Brotherhood of Man," "War to End War," "We must be just even +to those to whom we do not wish to be just." Then some monstrous hand +had turned the page and there was Harding, just as in his own life all +success at the bar and in politics, and the joy of being lord of a vast +country estate that had been patented in his family since colonial +times, had suddenly come to an end; the page had turned. + +So this is what he said, in a voice that rose not much above a whisper, +"I have told them where to dig a hole and put me, out here on my +pleasant place. I don't know what it means. I don't believe it has any +meaning. The only thing to do is to laugh. You have trouble laughing? +Look about you and you will find plenty to laugh at. Look at your +President and laugh. Look at your Supreme Court and laugh. Not one of +them knows whether he is coming or going. Everything for the moment has +lost its meaning for everyone. If you can't laugh at anything else, just +think how many angels there are who are blank blanks and how many blank +blanks there are who are angels ... and laugh." + +The Comic Spirit looking down from some cool distance sees something +like what this lawyer saw. It sees President Harding and the Ku Klux +Klan. The connection between President Harding and the Ku Klux Klan? The +Comic Spirit, perceiving everything, perceives that too. For it Mr. +Harding is but the pious manifestation of a sentiment of which the Ku +Klux Klan is the unconscious and serviceable parody, that instinctive +rush of a people with the world breaking up about it, to seek safety in +the past. Men always shrink thus backward when facing an uncertain +future, just as in moments of great peril they become children again, +call "Mother!" and revert to early practices at her knee. It is one of +the most intelligent things the human race ever does. It is looking +before you leap: the race has no choice but to leap; it draws back to +solid ground in the past for a better take-off into the future. Mr. +Harding represents solid ground, McKinley and the blessed nineties, the +days before men raised a presumptuous hand against the clock. + +If utterly in earnest and determined to revive that happy period, you +clothe yourself in that garment which evokes the assured past, the +blessed nineties, the long white night shirt; the long white night shirt +supplemented by the black mask and the tar brush shall surely save you. + +The Comic Spirit looking about largely, like our Fourth of July orator, +sees in Mr. Harding a wise shrinking into the safety of the past and in +Mr. William H. Taft, our new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at once +a regard for the past and an eye for the future. Can anyone tell whether +Mr. Justice Taft is coming or going, as this Fourth of July speaker +asked? He comes and he goes, and like the wind man knows not whence he +cometh or whither he goeth. He is forward looking--when he is not +backward looking. Like Zekle, + + "He stands a while on one foot fust, + Then stands a while on t'other; + And on which one he feels the wust, + He can not tell you nuther." + +Glance at his public career. He stood upon his future foot with +Roosevelt, the chosen executor of "My Policies." A little later he +stands upon his past foot, alongside of Aldrich and Cannon, doing the +works of perdition and bringing on the battle of Armageddon. Again you +find him standing on his future foot beside Mr. Frank P. Walsh in the +War Labor Board, ranging himself with Mr. Walsh in practically all the +close decisions. Again you see him when all the fine forward looking of +the war was over, scurrying from the Russian revolution as fast as +President Wilson or all the rest of us. And once more on his future foot +with Mr. Wilson for the League of Nations and on his past foot with +President Harding against the League of Nations. + +Let us be Freudian and say that the unconscious political self of the +whole nation is responsible for the selection of Mr. Harding and Mr. +Taft. As we shrink back into the past we are aware that it is for the +take-off into the future, and so we have Mr. Taft. We both eat our cake +and have it in the new Chief Justice. + +The United States, like Zekle, is "standing a while on one foot fust, +then standing a while on t'other," moving forward or backward. But not +for long, too large and secure to be permanently cautious, with too much +well-being to be permanently bold, thinking, but with a certain +restraining contempt for thought, instinctive rather than intellectual. +Vast, eupeptic, assimilative, generous, adaptable, the Chief Justice +typifies the American people in its more permanent characteristics. + +Mr. Harding as President, Mr. Taft as Chief Justice, the agricultural +bloc, the enfeebled Congress, the one million or so Democratic majority +which becomes in four years a seven-million Republican majority, are +only manifestations. The reality is the man, many millions strong, whose +mental state produces the symptoms at Washington. It will be profitable +to examine the content of his mind as it was in those days before +momentous decisions had to be made about daylight saving, and as it is +today when he hesitates between saving daylight and saving the clock, +and perhaps decides to save both. + +I can not better describe his political consciousness as it was than by +saying that it contained three governments--the government of the clock, +the government of the clock-winders, and the government of those who +lived by the clock as religiously minded by the clock-winders. It was an +orderly age, beautifully sure of itself, and the area of these three +governments was nicely delimited. There was only a small place for the +third of these governments. + +For the purposes of more common understanding I shall sometimes refer to +the government of the clock as the government of Progress, and the +government of the clock-winders as the government of business, and to +the third government as the government at Washington. + +Before the war the American was sure that with each tick of the clock +the world grew richer and better, especially richer. Progress went +inevitably on and on. It never turned backward or rested. Its mechanical +process relieved man of many responsibilities. No one would think of +touching the mechanism; turning back the hands of the clock might rob us +of some boon that was intended in the beginning whose moment of arrival +might be lost by interfering with God's Time. + +Born on a continent which only a few years before was a wilderness but +which now was the richest and one of the finest civilizations on the +earth, the American could not fail to believe in progress. The visible +evidences of it were on every hand. His father had been a poor immigrant +seeking the mere chance to live; he was a farmer possessed of many +acres, a business man who had an increasing income already in five +figures, a rising young attorney, or physician. Even from generation to +generation everything got better. + +The past had had its unhappy moments. The American looked back at the +past mainly to measure how far he had come and to guess how far moving +forward at a geometrical ratio of increased speed he would go in the not +distant future. History flattered him. + +Before his eyes went on the steady conquest over Nature, or perhaps it +is better to say, the steady surrender of Nature. Always there were new +discoveries of science. Always there were new inventions. Forces which a +little while ago were beyond control, whose existence even was +unsuspected, were harnessed to everyday uses. He saw progress in +statistics. Things which were reckoned in millions began to be reckoned +in hundreds of millions, began to be reckoned in billions. We loved to +read the long figures where, in the pleasing extension of ciphers, +wealth grew, debts grew--even debts were a source of pride before they +called for income taxes to meet the annual payments upon them. + +Progress would never stop. Tomorrow we should set the sun's rays to some +more practical use than making the earth green and pleasant to look at +and its fruits good to eat. We should employ them like the waters of +Niagara Falls, to turn the wheels of machinery by day and to light soap +and automobile signs on Broadway by night. We should split atoms apart +and release the mighty forces that had held them together since the +beginning, for the production of commodities in greater and greater +quantities at less and less cost. + +"We should," I say, but I do our inmost thought a vast injustice. +Rather, Progress would, scientists and inventors being only the +instruments of a Fate which went steadily forward to the accomplishment +of its beneficent purposes. At the right moment, at the appointed hour, +the man would appear. Progress kept the prompter's book and gave him the +cue. + +To a people with all these evidences of an irresistible forward movement +in Nature before its eyes, came a prophet who gave it its law, the law +of evolution, the law by which once the monocellular organism had +acquired the mysterious gift of life out of combination and +recombination inevitably came man. It was all the unfolding of the +inevitable, the unrolling of time; the working out of a law. + +Now, law has a quite extraordinary effect upon men's minds. The more Law +there is the less Man there is. The more man spells Law with a capital +letter the more he spells himself with a small letter. Man was no longer +the special creation of God. God, instead of making Adam and Eve his +wife, fashioned a grain of star dust and gave it a grain of star dust to +wife, leaving the rest to Progress. Man who had been a little lower than +the angels became, by an immense act of faith, a little higher than the +earthworm. The old doctrine of the Fall of Man took on a reverse twist. +Man had not fallen but he had risen from such debased beginnings that he +had not got far. He was in about the same place where he would have been +if he had fallen. + +It was easy to turn upside down our belief in the Fall of Man. We always +knew there was something wrong with him, but we did not know what it was +until evolution explained his unregenerate character so satisfactorily. +Still the thought that Man did not move forward as fast as things, was +less the special ward of Progress than automobiles, elevators and +bathtubs, was vaguely disturbing. + +The Greeks had left us records which showed that the human mind was as +good three thousand years ago as it is today, or better. We shut our +eyes to this bit of evidence by abandoning the study of the classics and +excluding all allusion to them in the oratory of our Congress. And +Mr. Wells in his History has since justified us by proving that +the Greeks were after all only the common run of small-town +folk--over-press-agented, perhaps, by some fellows in the Middle Ages +who had got tired of the Church and who therefore pretended that there +was something bigger and better in the world than it was. + +So we pinned our hopes on the Martians and spent our time frantically +signalling to the nearby planet, asking whether, when the earth grew as +cold as King David when his physicians "prescribed by way of poultice a +young belle," and responded only weakly to the caress of the Sun, when +its oceans dried up and only a trickle of water came down through its +valleys from the melting ice at its poles, we should not, like the +fancied inhabitants of the nearest celestial body, have evolved at last +into super-beings. We wanted some evidence from our neighbors that, in +spite of the Greeks, by merely watching the clock we should arrive at a +higher estate. + +The point I am trying to make is that we have been conducting the most +interesting of Time's experiments in the government of men at a period +when Man has been at a greater discount than usual in his own mind, when +self-government faced too much competition from government by the clock. + +When I speak of government by the clock, I should, perhaps, use capital +letters to indicate that I have in mind that timepiece on which is +recorded God's Time; whose ticking is the forward march of progress. +Clocks as they touch our lives require human intervention. The winders +of these clocks perform something that may be described as an office. + +You recall the place the clock filled in our households a generation +ago. Father wound it once a week, at a stated time, as regularly as he +went to church. The winding of it was a function. No other hand but +father's touched the key; if one had, the whole institution of family +life would have been imperiled. Father is a symbol for the government of +the clock-winders, those sacred persons who translated Progress into +terms of common utility. + +When we descended from the regions of theocratic power to those of human +institutions, we found ourselves in America to be workers in one vast +countrywide workshop. The workshop touches us more directly and more +importantly than does the nation. Out of the workshop comes our bread +and butter. When the workshop closes down we suffer and form on line at +the soup kitchens. + +Three meals a day concern us more than do post-offices and federal +buildings, of however white marble or however noble façades. What we +have to eat and to wear, what we may put in the bank, what real freedom +we enjoy, our position in the eyes of men, our happiness and +unhappiness, depend on our relations to the national workshop, not on +our relations to the national government. + +We conceived of it vaguely as a thing which produced prosperity, not +prosperity in its larger and more permanent aspects--that was ours +through the beneficence of Progress and the immortal luck of our +country--but prosperity in its more immediate details. + +A lot of confused thinking in which survived political ideas as old as +the race, converted into modern forms, entered into our conception of +it. It was a thing of gods and demigods, with legends of golden fleeces +and of Hercules holding up the skies. It was feudal in its privileges +and immunities. It enjoyed the divine right of kings. Yet it operated +under laws not made by man. + +When it failed to effect prosperity, it was because of a certain law +that at the end of ever so many years of fatness it must produce a +famine. At such times men, demigods, stepped out of banks with sacks of +gold on their shoulders and mitigated the rigors of its failure. + +And these splendid personages might set going again that which law +stopped. We bowed patiently and unquestioningly to its periodic +eccentricity as part of the Fate that fell upon the original sinner, and +watched hopefully the powerful men who might in their pleasure or their +wisdom end our sufferings. + +We were taught to regard it as a thing distinct from political +authority, so that the less governors and lawmakers interfered with it +the better for the general welfare. Back in our past is a thorough +contempt for human intelligence which relates somehow to the religious +precept against questioning the wisdom of God. Whatever ordinary men did +in the field of economics was sure to be wrong and to check the flow of +goods upon which the well-being of society depended. We were all, except +the familiars of the great forces, impotent pieces of the game economic +law played upon this checker-board of nights and days. + +I have said that this government of the national workshop in which we +were all laborers or foremen or superintendents or masters sometimes +seemed to our consciousness a government of laws and sometimes a +government of men. In any primitive faith priests played a large part, +and probably the primitive worshippers before them much of the time did +not think beyond the priests, while sometimes they did--when it was +convenient for the priests that they should. + +When famines or plagues came it was because the gods were angry. When +they are averted it is the priests who have averted them. When economic +panics came it was because we had sinned against economic law; when they +were averted it was because men had averted them, men who lived on +intimate terms with economic law and understood its mysterious ways, and +enjoyed its favor, as their great possessions testified. + +Naturally, we are immensely more directly and more constantly concerned +with this government than with the government at Washington. Besides, we +were mostly business men, or hoped to be. It was our government more +truly than was the government at Washington. + +Only a limited area in the political consciousness was left for +self-government. You descended from the heights to the broad flat plain +of man's contempt for man. It was there, rooted firmly in the +constitution, that the government at Washington reared its head. +Self-government is a new thing; no myth has gathered about it. It was +established among men who believed in the doctrine of the original sin, +and it had been carried by their successors, who had abandoned the +sinner Adam as the progenitor of their kind for the sinless but +inglorious earthworm. The inferiority complex which is the race's most +persistent heritage from the past was written all over it. + +I suppose it was Adam Smith who made self-government possible by +discovering that the things really essential to our welfare would take +care of themselves if we only let them alone and that the more we let +them alone the better they would take care of themselves, under eternal +and immutable laws. Ah, the happy thought occurred, if the really +essential things are thus beneficially regulated why shouldn't we have +the fun of managing the non-essentials ourselves? + +Progress ruled the world kindly and well. It might be trusted to see +that all went for the best. The government of business functioned +effectively for the general weal. The future was in the hands of a force +that made the world richer and better. The present, in all that +concerned man most vitally with regards food and shelter, was directed +by enlightened self-interest represented by men who personified success. + +It was impossible not to be optimistic when existence was so well +ordered. There was no sorry scheme of things to be seized entire. Life +was a sort of tropics without tropical discomforts. The tropics do not +produce men. They produce things. + +The Mechanism worked, as it seemed to us, in those happy days. We were +satisfied with the clock and the clock-winders. We were not divided in +our minds as to whether we should turn back its hands. The less men +meddled the better. There was little work for human government to do. +There was no call for men. + +The picture in our heads, to use Mr. Graham Wallas's phrase, was of a +world well ruled by a will from the beginning, whose purpose was +increase; of some superior men having semi-sacred relations with the +will who acted as intermediaries between the will and the rest of us; +and of the rest of us as being rewarded by the will, through its +intermediaries, according to our timidity and submissiveness. + +It was, the world, over the great age of the racial inferiority complex, +for which Science had furnished a new and convincing basis. I might +maintain that the Great War was modern society's effort to compensate +for the evolution complex; man wanted to show what he could do, in spite +of his slimy origin. Anyway, it broke the picture in our heads. Being +economical, like Mr. Harding, we are trying both to save the pieces of +the picture and put them together again, and to form, out of them +unfortunately, a new picture; which accounts for our confusion. + +But the picture in our heads before the war, such as it was, is the +reason for our present inadequacy. You could not form much of a +self-government or develop men for one, with that complex in your soul. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +GOD'S TIME AS IT IS; AN INGERSOLL THAT REQUIRES MUCH WINDING + + +How many of us believe in Progress with the unquestioning faith we had +before that day in July, 1914, when Austria's declaration of war upon +Serbia started the ruin of all that centuries had built up in Europe? +Most of us have not stopped to analyze what has happened since to our +belief that the world ever moved by an irresistible primal impulse +forward to more and better things, that the song which the morning stars +sang together was "It shall be multiplied unto you," that increment is +inevitable and blessed. But how many of us really believe that in the +unqualified way we once did? + +The world had many pleasant illusions about Progress before the great +catastrophe of 1914 came to shatter them. And nowhere were these +illusions more cheerfully accepted than in this country of ours, where a +wilderness had become a great civilization in the space of a century and +where the evidences of rapid, continuous advancement were naturally +strong. + +The first pleasant illusion was that modern progress had made war +impossible, at least war between the great nations of the earth, which, +profiting by the examples we had set them, enjoyed more or less free +governments, where production mounted from year to year, where wealth +was ever increasing. Destiny plainly meant more and more iron dug from +the ground and turned into steel machinery, larger, more powerful +automobiles, taller and taller buildings, swifter and swifter elevators, +more and more capacious freight cars, and destiny would not tolerate +stopping all this for the insanity of destruction. + +Moreover--how good were the ways of Progress--the ever increasing +mastery over the forces of nature which had been fate's latest and best +gift to humanity, approaching a sort of millennium of machinery, while +creating vaster engines of industry had brought into being more and +monstrous weapons of warfare. + +Life with benignant irony was making man peaceful in spite of himself. +His bigger and bigger cannon, his more and more lethal explosives were +destroying his capacity for destruction. War was being hoist by its own +petard. The bigger the armies, the more annihilating the shells piled up +in the arsenals, the less the chance of their ever being used. + +Progress, infinitely good toward man, had found a way out of war, the +plague that had blighted the earth since the beginning. What religion +could not do, the steel foundries and the chemical laboratories had +done. They had made war too deadly to be endured. In effect they had +abolished it. Peace was a by-product of the Bessemer oven and the dye +vat. Man's conquest of himself was an unconsidered incident of his +conquest of nature. + +Then there were the costs of war. Progress had done something more than +make fighting intolerably destructive of men and cities; it had made it +intolerably destructive of money. Even if we would go to war, we could +not since no nation could face the vast expenditures. + +Two little wars of brief duration, the Boer War and the Balkan War, had +left great debts to be paid and had brought in their train financial +disturbances affecting the entire world. A European war would destroy +immensely more capital and involve vastly greater burdens. No nation +with such a load on its shoulders could meet the competition of its +peace keeping rivals for the world's trade. No government in its senses +would provoke such consequences, and governments were, of course, always +in their senses. + +You did not have to accept this as an act of faith; you could prove it. +Shells, thanks to Progress, cost so many hundreds of dollars each. +Cannon to fire them cost so many thousands of dollars each and could +only be used a very few times. Armies such as the nations of Europe +trained, cost so much a day to feed and to move. The demonstration was +perfect. Progress had rendered war virtually impossible. + +If in spite of all a war between great modern nations did start, it +could last only a few weeks. No people could stand the strain. +Bankruptcy lay at the end of a short campaign. A month would disclose +the folly of it, and bring the contestants to their senses; if it did +not, exhaustion would. Credit would quickly disappear. Nations could not +borrow on the scale necessary to prolong the struggle. + +The wisest said all these things as governments began to issue orders of +mobilization in 1914. Emperors were merely shaking their shining armor +at each other. There would be no war. It was impossible. The world had +progressed too far. Anachronistic monarchies might not know it, but it +had. Their armies belonged as much to the past as their little titles, +as all the middle-age humbug of royalty, their high-wheeled coaches, +their out-riders in their bright uniform, their debilitating habit of +marrying cousins, their absurdities about their own divine rights. They +had armies, as they wore upturned mustachios, to make themselves look +imposing. They were as unreal as the pictured kings in children's story +books or on a deck of cards. Forces mightier than they had settled +forever the question of war. + +And when hostilities actually began an incredulous America knew they +would be over in three months. Anybody with a piece of paper and a +pencil could prove that they could not last. It took all of Kitchener's +prestige to persuade society that the fighting would keep on through the +winter, and his prediction that it would continue three years was +received as the error of a reporter or the opinion of a professional +soldier who overlooked the economic impossibility of a long war. + +It is worth while recalling these cheerful illusions to estimate what +has happened to the idea of Progress in seven swiftly changing years. We +did not give up readily the illusion that the world had been vastly and +permanently changed for the better. As it was proved that there could be +a war and a long one and as the evidence multiplied that this war was +the most devastating in all history, we merely changed our idea of +Progress, which became in our minds a force that sometimes produced evil +in order that good might result. + +The Great War itself was assimilated to our idea of a beneficent fate. +Whom Progress loveth it chasteneth. Instead of rendering war impossible +by making it destructive and costly, it visited the earth with the +greatest war of all time in order to make war impossible. This was the +war to end all war. The ways of progress were past finding out but they +were good. + +Paper demonstrations had gone wrong. Governments did not go bankrupt +after a few months but could still borrow at the end of five years. +Humanity did not sicken and turn away from the destruction, but the +greater the carnage the more eager were the nations still at peace to +have a hand in it. Still it could never happen again. It was a lesson +sent of fate. Men must co-operate with progress and not leave to that +force the sole responsibility for a permanently peaceful future. They +had sinned against the light in allowing such unprogressive things, as +autocracies upon the earth. They must remove the abominations of the +Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns. Once they had set up that brightest +flower of Progress, modern democracy, in place of the ancient empires, +there would be no more wars. Democracy had one great merit. It was +rather stupid and lacking in foresight. It did not prepare for war and +being forever unready would not fight. + +The war had been sent by Progress to call man's attention to their +duties regarding certain anachronisms with which Progress was otherwise +unable to deal. + +[Illustration: UNCLE SAM'S CONFERENCE] + +You will observe that the idea of Progress took three forms in as many +years. First it was a pure force moving straight ahead toward a goal of +unimaginable splendor, even whose questionable products like bigger +cannon and higher explosives accomplished by one of its larger ironies +benefits that were the opposite of their purposes. + +Then assuming the aspects of a more personal deity, it became capable of +intentions and could choose courses utterly inconsistent with itself in +order to achieve ends that would be splendidly consistent with itself. +It made larger demands upon faith. + +Then it began to require a little aid from man himself, on the principle +that God helps them that help themselves, the cleaning up by men of the +human rubbish heap, the purging of autocracy by democracy. Human +responsibility began to emerge. The picture in our heads was changing. + +Then, as the war came to a close it became apparent that President +Wilson's happy idea that democracies, being stupid and unready to fight, +would live together in eternal peace, was inadequate. The treaty would +leave the three great democracies armed as the autocracies never had +been armed. They might elect to remain so and use their weapons as +provocatively as any Hapsburg or Hohenzollern ever did. Men must +organize, must league themselves together, must govern themselves +internationally in order to have peace, which was no longer an +accidental by-product of the modern factory, but must be created by men +themselves, deliberately acting to that end. Men must work out their own +salvation, aided and admonished of course by such perfect works of +progress as a war to end war. + +Men make the attempt. The peoples of the earth assemble and write a +treaty which keeps the chief democratic nations on the continent of +Europe armed against each other, which provides endless subjects of +dispute among the smaller countries; and they sign a covenant which the +unanimous opinion of mankind rejects as an effective safeguard against +future wars and which many regard as dividing the earth into two hostile +camps. "It was humanity's failure," declares General Smuts. "There will +always be war," asserts President Harding, calling a conference not to +end war but to lessen the cost of preparing for war. + +Not only has material progress failed to produce peace as its +by-product, but moral progress has failed to produce peace as its +deliberate product. + +And Progress is in reality moving forward to wars more deadly and more +ruinous than the last. Weapons were developed toward the end of the +Great War capable of vastly worse havoc than any used during its course. +And only a beginning has been made. If we may come to use the power that +holds atoms together in the driving of engines, we may also use it in +war to blast whole cities from the face of the earth. Conquest of the +air means larger bombs from the air. Greater knowledge of chemistry +means industrial advancement and also deadlier poison gases. Material +gains bring compensating material ills or the possibility of them. + +Even the material gains, great as they have been, seem somewhat smaller +today than they once were thought to be. In our most optimistic moments +before the war we had the pleasant illusion of steadily decreasing hours +of labor and steadily lowering costs. Men had worked twelve, ten, and +finally eight hours a day, and it was predicted that this process would +go on until six, perhaps four hours a day would be sufficient to supply +the needs of the race. + +We paid five cent fares on the street cars and were hopeful that they +would become three cent fares; three cents was established by law in +many cities as the maximum charge. The railroads collected a little over +two cents a mile for carrying passengers and in many states statutes +were enacted establishing two cents a mile as the legal rate. We were +impressed by striking examples of lowering prices, in the automobile +industry for example, and were confident that this was the rule of +modern life. + +Prices, except of food products, were steadily decreasing; there might +be an end to this movement but we were nowhere near the end. The wonders +of modern inventions, and if not these, the economics of concentrated +organization, and if not these, the use of by-products, were steadily +lowering costs. The standard of living was rising. What was the rich +man's luxury in one generation was the poor man's necessity in the next. +It would always be so. That was Progress. + +We now pay seven or eight cents to ride on street cars and more than +three cents a mile to travel on trains. All prices have advanced. The +standard of living has declined and we ask ourselves if it will not have +to decline still further. No one now talks of a six-hour day. We +recognize a check in the process toward increasing well-being at less +effort. Life has become more difficult. Progress is no longer a simple +and steady movement onward in a single direction. Like evolution +sometimes it seems to stand still or perhaps go back. Like evolution it +requires a _vital élan_; it is a thing of leaps and rests. We are less +enthusiastic about it when it rests. + +We blame our discomfiture, the higher prices and the lower standard of +living on the war, but much of it was inevitable, war or no war. The +idea that the struggle for existence would grow steadily easier was +largely a conclusion from appearances. We were raising our standard of +living by skimming the cream of our natural resources. When our original +forests were cut, when the most easily mined veins of iron and coal were +exhausted, when oil wells ceased to gush and had to be pumped, unless +substitutes were found, all the basic costs of production would advance. +Ultimately they would advance to the point where economies of +organization, of quantity production, of by-product development, so far +as they have been realized, would no longer serve to keep down final +prices. We were rapidly reaching that point when the war came. + +We lived under an illusion. What we called the results of progress was +the rapid exhaustion of easily available resources. We used our capital +and thought ourselves rich. And we lie under a burden of debt made much +heavier by the weapons which progress put into our hands. Progress had +not made war too expensive to fight but it had made peace too expensive +to be borne. We forgot the law of diminishing returns. We ignored the +lessons of history that all ages come to an end, when the struggle for +existence once more grows severe until new instruments are found equal +to the further conquest over nature. Useful inventions have not kept +pace with increasing consumption and rapidly disappearing virgin +resources. The process of steadily lowering costs of production has +stopped and reverse process has set in. Spectacular inventions like the +airplane have deluded us into the belief that Progress, always blessing +us, we had the world by the tail. But coal and iron became harder and +costlier to mine. Oil neared exhaustion. Timber grew scarcer. +Agricultural lands smaller in proportion to population. + +Immense possibilities lie before us. So they did before the man with the +stone hatchet in his hand, but he waited long for the steam, saw and +drill and crusher. An invention which would mean as much in the conquest +of nature as did the steam engine would make the war debt as easily +borne as the week's account at the grocery store. But when will progress +vouchsafe it? Converting coal into power we waste 85 per cent of its +energy in coal and call that efficient. But does Progress always respond +instantly to our needs with new methods and devices, like a nurse +responding to a hungry child? A few years ago we were sure it did, but +now we look anxiously at the skies for a sign. + +We had another characteristic pleasant illusion during the war. +Progress, like the Lord, in all previous conflicts was on our side. Here +was a great need of humanity. Surely, according to rule, it should be +met by some great invention that would blast the Germans out of their +places in the earth and give the sons of light an easy and certain +victory. All the familiars of the deity sat about in boards watching for +the indication that the engine to meet the needs of civilization had +been granted. But it never was. + +I do not write this to suggest that men, especially American men, have +ceased to believe in Progress. They would be fools if they had. I write +to suggest that they have ceased to believe in Progress. They would be +fools if they had not. A great illusion is gone, one of the chief +dislocations wrought by the war. + +What the war has done to our way of thinking has been to lay a new +stress upon man as a free and responsible agent. After all the battles +were won not by guns, or tanks or gas or airplanes, but as always by the +common man offering his breast to the shots of the enemy. The hope of +the future is all in human organizations, in societies of nations, in +councils and conferences. Men's minds turn once more to governments with +renewed expectation. Not only do we think for the first time seriously +of a government of the world but we focus more attention on the +government at Washington. Groups with special interests to serve reach +out openly to control it. + +The war laid a new emphasis on government. Not only did the government +have our persons and our lives at its command but it assumed authority +over our food, it directed our factories and our railroads, it told us +what we could manufacture and ship, it decided who could borrow of the +general credit and for what purposes, it fixed the prices at which we +could buy and sell. It came to occupy a new place in the national +consciousness and one which it will never wholly lose. One rival to +it,--the belief, having its roots in early religious ideas, and +strengthened by scientific theory and the outward results of the great +inventions, that moved by some irresistible impulse, life went steadily +forward to higher and higher planes, and that man had but little to do +but pluck the fruits of progress--has been badly shattered by events. + +But men do not change beliefs suddenly. Perhaps after all the war was +only the way of progress--to usher in a new and brilliant day. Perhaps +the unfolding future has something near in store far greater and better +than went before. We shall not trust men too far, men with their +obstinate blindness, men with their originally sinful habit of thinking +they know better than the forces which rule the world. We want not +leaders but weather cocks, who will veer to the kindlier wind that may +blow when it is yet only a zephyr. + +We turn to men yet, we cling a little to the hope that fate will yet +save us. This division in us accounts for Lloyd George and Harding, our +own commonplace "best we have on hand" substitute for the infinitely +variable Englishman, adjusted to every breath that blows, who having no +set purpose of his own offers no serious obstacle to any generous design +of fate. + +Senator Borah once said to me, "The Administration has no definite +policies." And it is not Mr. Harding's fault. If he wanted to form any +the people wouldn't let him. They elected him not to have any. They +desired in the White House some one who would not look further ahead +than the next day until the future became clearer. If he had purposes +events might prove them to be wrong. + +The same fundamental idea underlay the remark of a member of the +Cabinet, at the outset of the recent disarmament and Far Eastern +Conference, that "Lloyd George was the hope of the gathering because he +had no principles." + +The war destroyed many men but it half restored Man. You see how +inevitable optimism is. The ways of Progress are indeed past finding +out. Governments during it performed the impossible. They even took in +hand the vast industrial mechanism which we ordinarily leave to the +control of the "forces." We half suspect they might do the impossible in +peace but we half hope that some kindlier fate is in store for us than +to trust ourselves to human intelligence. We don't know whether to put +our money on Man or on Progress; so we put it on Mr. Harding. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +GOLDEN WORDS TURN TO BRASS + + +Unlike government by Progress, government by business, by the +semi-sacred intermediaries between the will to increase and the rest of +us, began to disintegrate before the war; which merely completed the +process. + +Let us consider what has happened in the last few years to government by +business, that government which the smoking compartment philosopher has +in mind when he says so hopefully of Mr. Harding: "_They_ will see to it +that he gets along all right." + +The first manifestation of nationality in this country was the +nationality of business. Before industry became national nothing was +national. The United States was a pleasant congeries of localities. It +was held together by reading everywhere the story of the Battle of +Bunker Hill in the same school history, which sometimes bore a different +author's name but which was always the same history. "Don't fire till +you can see the whites of their eyes" and "If we don't hang together we +shall all hang separately" were the unifying bond, and they were enough. +We had the same sense of identity as an infant has when it becomes aware +that the delightful toe and the delightful mouth where it is inserted +appertain vaguely to the one ego. The local factory and the local bank +subtended the entire arc of economic consciousness. There was one +single-track railroad which ran from Podunk to Peopack and another from +Peopack to Peoria, unrelated, discontinuous. + +In those simple times when business was local the local factory owner, +banker, or railroad builder was the hero of his neighborhood. It was he +who "put the town on the map." He gave it prosperity. He built it by +attracting labor into his employment. He gave it contact with the +outside world. If you owned town lots it was he who gave them value and +it was he who might take away their value if he was offended. If you had +a general store it was he who added to its patronage by adding to the +population. If you raised farm products nearby it was he who improved +your market. He built the fine house which it was your pride to show +visitors. Your success and happiness was bound up in his. He conferred +his blessings for a consideration, for you were careful to make no laws +which restricted the freedom of his operations. You permitted him a vast +unofficial "say" in your local government; you gave him a little the +best of it in the assessment for taxes. You felt a little lifted up by +his condescension in calling you by your first name and stopping to ask +about your family on the street corner. You were jealous of his rights +because after all the value of your own depended upon his use of his. + +When business figures arose upon the national horizon they were merely +these local figures vastly multiplied. As a people we called them "Jim" +and "Jay," and "Dan'l," just as we had called the local manufacturer and +banker by their first names. All the good will that went to the local +business leaders went to them. They put money into our pockets, when +they didn't happen to take it out of our pockets; on the whole they were +doing the great work of making this country a richer and better land. +Some who did not conceive the resources of the printing press in the +issuance of new securities had to suffer, but that was their lookout; +suffering for some was the way of the world. + +Business began to be national in the tying together into systems the +little dislocated railroads that local enterprise had laid down and in +the creation of a national securities market for the distribution of +ownership in the new combinations. + +A new era opened when Gould and Fisk and Drew started at full speed +their rival printing presses in Wall Street. Look over our whole drab +political story from the death of Lincoln to the arrival of Roosevelt, +more than a generation, and, if we did not preserve the names of our +Presidents in our histories, how many names are there worth +remembering? Garfield was shot, which was dramatic. Cleveland was a fat +man who used long Latin words. He was also the first Democratic chief +executive in more than thirty years. What else? Who else? + +Meanwhile an amazing array of business personages diverted attention +from the inconspicuous Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys, who were the +flower of our public life. Gould, Fisk, Drew, Hill, Carnegie, the +Rockefellers, Harriman, Morgan, Ryan--business was fertile of men, +politics sterile; you have to go back to the foundation of the +government for a period so prolific in men, of the other sort, or to the +age of Elizabeth or of Pericles for another as prolific in men, of still +another kind. How could the dull sideshow in Washington compete with the +big spectacle in New York? + +These demigods of business were not only shining personalities; they +were doing the work of making America great and rich; we all shared in +the prosperity they were creating. To go back to the small town again, +who was it increased the opportunities of the storekeeper, the +neighboring farmer, or real estate holder? Was it the mayor and the +common council by passing ordinances about street signs and sidewalk +encumbrances? Or the manufacturer or railroad builder who put the town +on the map, giving employment to labor or an outlet for its products? + +The government at Washington occupied a place in our consciousness +similar to that of the government of the small town. It was charged with +our national defense, a function of such little importance that we had +hardly an army or a navy. It conducted our economic defense, against the +foreigner, with laws written, however, by business itself, which +naturally knew best how it wanted to be defended; you could not, in your +proper senses, suppose that the Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys were +wiser than the Carnegies, Hills, Morgans, or Harrimans. For the rest it +was told severely to let well enough alone. To make assurance doubly +sure that it would do so it was rather openly given over to the great +men who were creating the national wealth. + +Starting with the combination of the little speculatively built +railroads into systems and the development of a security market to float +the shares of stock in the new companies, business took on rapidly a +more and more national character. Great bankers arose to finance the +consolidations. An investing public with a wider horizon than that which +used to put its money in local enterprises entrusted its funds in the +hands of the great bankers or took its chances in the market for stocks. +Industry went through a similar concentration. Stronger companies +absorbed their weaker and less successful rivals. The same bankers who +sat in the boards of directors of the railroads representing their +investing public took their places in the directorate of manufacturing +combinations. + +The railroads seeking the business of the big industrial companies and +the big industrial companies desiring favors from the railroads placed +representatives in each others' boards. This interlocking created a +national organization of business dominated by a few striking and +spectacular figures. + +The popular imagination was as much heated over the discovery of the +United States as a single field of enterprise as the imagination of +Europe had been centuries earlier over the discovery of the new world. + +The psychology of the local industry period carried over into this new +period of national industry. The whole country became one vast small +town. The masters of industry, banking, and the railroads were the +leading citizens. They were "putting the United States on the map," as +the local creator of wealth had put the small town on the map. They were +doing something vast, from which we all undoubtedly benefited. Perhaps +we could not trace our advantage so immediately as we could to the +enterprise of the man who brought population to our town, swelling the +price of our real estate or increasing the sales at our stores. But what +had been a matter of experience on a small scale was a matter of belief +on a large scale. The same consequences must follow, with manifold +abundance. And the nation was demonstrably growing rapidly, immensely +richer; surely cause and effect. + +Business had from the first taken on among us, as Mr. Lowes Dickinson +remarks, a religious character; and when by a great thrust it +overreached the bounds of locality and became national, its major +prophets emerged. Mr. Van Wyck Brooks quotes Mark Twain as writing: "The +words of a proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound, and his +common sayings are as if they were solid wisdom." How much more of this +sacred character inhered in the heroes who created nationwide railroad +systems, vast steelmaking consolidations, monopolies of oil and coal! + +When a New York lawyer said of E. H. Harriman that he moved in spheres +which no one else dare tread, he was putting, a little late, into words +the national awe of the men who had overleapt the bounds of locality and +bestrode the continent industrially, the heads of the vast business +hierarchy. When Mr. Baer said that he operated the Reading Railroad by +divine right he said only what a worshipping people had taught him to +think. Those men did not use this half-religious language by accident; +they crystallized into phrases the feeling of the country toward those +who had done God's work of making it rich, making it successful. + +Each like an unconscious Cervantes helped to laugh our industrial +chivalry away. + +How easy it is to believe about yourself what everyone believes about +you! How hard not to! How easy to believe that you rule railroads by +"divine right," or walk in "higher spheres," when the whole unexpressed +consciousness of a hundred million people assigns you just such hieratic +appurtenances and privileges. How doubt in the face of all this +evidence? They identified themselves with Progress, and Progress was +what ruled the world. If you have faith and if you are fortified with +the faith of others, self-identification with one of the larger forces +is not difficult. Was not what they were doing Progress, was it not the +realization of that benignant will to the utter blossoming of chaos into +utility which was planned in the beginning? Were they not instruments +rather than mere men, instruments of the greater purpose of which +America was the perfect work? If you believe in theocratic forces you +believe also in chosen human agencies for carrying them out. + +They were more than instruments of Progress. I have spoken of government +by economic law as having challenged political government in the +consciousness of the people. As a country we perhaps believe in economic +law more firmly than any nation in the world. Wasn't America being +produced in accordance with economic law and wasn't America one of the +marvels of the earth? I asked a salesman recently, a man with no +personal interests which would give him the prejudices of the business +world, why he hated Henry Ford. "Because," he replied instantly and +without hesitation, "he defies economic law." He spoke like a true +American. To defy economic law and make money at it is like selling the +Savior for twenty pieces of silver. + +"The physical laws," says De Gourmont, "promulgated or established by +the scientists, are confessions of ignorance. When they cannot explain a +mechanism they declare its movements are due to a law. Bodies fall by +virtue of the law of gravitation. This has precisely the same value in +the serious order as the comic _virtus dormitiva_." In the promulgation +of economic law our interest perverts the simple and just operation of +our ignorance. In the field of physical phenomena we perceive a series +of uniform events and call that uniformity a law. In the field of +economic phenomena we perceive a series of events uniformly serving our +interests and call that uniformity a law. + +These greater business men of the past fruitful generation operated on +the whole over a long period of falling prices. Wealth accumulated. You +read about it in the government reports, dividing the total by the total +population. The division thus effected was mighty assuring. Labor was +better paid. Higher institutions of learning multiplied. Libraries +housed in marble grew upon every crossroads. Intellectual as well as +material needs were in process of being better satisfied. We were +approaching an age when ink upon white paper, now so cheap, cheaper +than ever in the pitiful past, should lift humanity to a new and higher +level. + +[Illustration: REPRESENTATIVE FRANK W. MONDELL OF WYOMING] + +The evidence was conclusive. These greater business men were in supreme, +in conspicuous direction of the country's development. The happiest +results followed. They worked in harmony with economic law, for they +prospered gloriously and one could no more break economic law and +prosper than one could break criminal law and keep out of jail. Until +Ford came no one could defy economic law with impunity. + +And law and justice being two ideas that associate themselves together +in the human mind, in a binder of optimism perhaps, like the disparate +elements that form clinkers in a furnace, they were accomplishing that +perfect work of the justice which inhered in things at the beginning, +when tiny atoms with the urge to produce an earth fit for man to live +on, to produce America in short, began to discover affinities for each +other. No wonder they penetrated "higher spheres" ruled by "divine +right," and that "golden words" dropped from their mouths. Progress, +destiny, an instinct for economic law, it was much to unite one man. + +Again, they were more than this. Men cannot be so universally looked to +for the welfare of the nation as they were, without becoming in effect +the government of that nation. Business and the government were one. +Public opinion at that time would have regarded an administration which +defied the great commercial interests as dangerous to the country's +advancement. Lawyers like Mr. Knox or Mr. Root, who had proved their +value to them, went to the Senate as their spokesmen. Able and ambitious +men in both Houses of Congress, wishing power and influence, became +their agents. The chairmen of the important committees of both houses +were in their confidence and spoke with authority because of what they +represented. Some of the virtue of the great, some shadow of divine +right, descended upon them. Among valets the valet of the king is king. + +We forget, in the great outcry that was raised a few years ago over the +"invisible government," that the invisible government was once +sufficiently visible, almost consciously recognized, and fully accepted. +It seemed the most natural thing in the world that the men who were +making the country rich, making it a nation economically, should work +their will freely at Washington. We jealously guarded their liberties. +Woe unto the legislator who would interfere with their freedom to +contract, for example, for the labor of children, which we described as +the freedom of children to sell their labor advantageously. Adult labor +banding together to arrange terms of its own sale was felt to be a +public enemy. Every age has its fetish; the medicine man who could +exorcise the evil spirit in stone and bush was not a more privileged +character than his successor at whose touch prosperity sprang out of +the earth, at whose word the mysterious economic forces which might in +their wrath prove so destructive, bowed and became kind. + +Make a few individuals the embodiment of a national purpose that has +long existed, unconscious and unquestioned, give them as you inevitably +do in such a case the utmost freedom that is possible on this earth, let +them be limited enough mentally so that they are blind to any other +possible purpose; do all these things and you produce great men. It was +an age of great men, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Morgans, Hills, Ryans, +Harrimans, and a host of others, richer in personalities than any other +period of American life except that which produced Washington, Hamilton, +Franklin, Jefferson, and Marshall. They were the flowering of the whole +pioneer civilization. + +One hundred and fifty years of freedom has produced few free men. +Perhaps these were all. They may not have been free intellectually. +Charles Francis Adams writes of their kind: "I have known, and known +tolerably well, a good many successful men,--'big' financially, men +famous during the last half century; and a less interesting crowd I do +not care to encounter. Not one that I have ever known would I care to +meet again, nor is one of them associated in my mind with the idea of +humor, thought, or refinement." + +Never mind. They were free in all the essential ways. The men of whom +Adams wrote had no such sense of their limitations as he expressed. +Only an Adams would then have had it, and the Adamses were not what M. +Galtier of _Le Temps_ suggested when, hastily absorbing the American +spirit at Washington, he said to me: "I am reading _The Education of +Henry Adams_: He was what you would call a typical American, was he +not?" + +An Adams, even Charles Francis Adams, writing of that time, was +untypical enough, to have missed the point, which was not whether these +men "'big' financially" were interesting, witty, thoughtful, or refined, +but whether they were free. And they were; they were so sure of +themselves, and public opinion was so sure of them, that they +concentrated on the one great aim of that simple day, and did not waste +themselves upon non-essentials like "humor, thought, or refinement." + +I have a theory that we are wrong in ascribing the poverty of American +literature and statesmanship to the richness of our business life. "All +our best and ablest minds went into commerce," we say. We flatter +ourselves. Mr. Carnegie, born in the days of Elizabeth, might not have +been Shakespeare. Mr. Harriman was perhaps, after all, no mute Milton, +Mr. Morgan no Michaelangelo. + +These brave spirits developed in business not so much perhaps because of +the national urge to "conquer a continent" as because in business, +enjoying the immunity it then did, they found the utmost opportunity for +self-expression, the one great measure of freedom which this free +country afforded. A jealous public guarded their divine right from +impious hands. They believed in themselves. The people believed in them. +So the flowering of the pioneer age came, in such a race of men as are +not on the earth today, and the rule of business reached its climax. + +It was an autumn flowering, rich and golden like the Indian summer of +New England culture, a sign that a cycle was run. Adams sniffing from +the transcendental heights of Boston wrote: "a race of mere +money-getters and traders." Remember the sneers in our cocksure press of +those days at the "culture" of Boston? Boston has had its revenge. The +words "mere money-getters" bit in. There were other objects in life +beside pioneering the industrial opportunities of a whole continent just +brought together into commercial unity. Mr. Morgan began to buy art. Mr. +Carnegie began to buy libraries and started authorship himself. The men +"'big' financially" began to look over their shoulders and see the +shadows--as we all do now--where they a little before kept their eyes +straight forward and saw the one clear vision, the truth, such as it +was, that made them free. + +I have traced that element in the American political consciousness, +government by business, to its highest moment. + +"Divine right" is only safe when it is implicit. When you begin to avow +it, as Mr. Baer did, it is already in question. The national passion +for equality began to work. Had not Mr. Carnegie confessed the weakness +in his soul's fortress by writing a book? Had not Mr. Morgan by buying +art suggested the one aim of pioneering on a grand scale might not be +life's sole end? + +Mr. Baer with his avowal, Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Morgan with their seeking +of the broader satisfactions, Mr. Schwab behaving like a king in exile +at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, may have invited what followed. But +they were only expressing in their own way the sense becoming general +that pioneering was over and that its ideals were too narrow and too +few--even if no clear sense was coming of what state and what ideals +were to take their place. Men turn from leaders whose day of greatest +usefulness is past and set up new leaders against them. Against the +government by business the first great national unity that entered the +American consciousness they began to erect the state, the national +government at Washington. + +No one meant to end government by business and substitute for it +government by the people. Not for a moment. We devised a new set of +checks and balances, like that between the various branches provided for +in our Constitution, a new political organism which should equal and +coexist with the one we already had. The government personified by Mr. +Roosevelt was the check and balance to the government personified by +Mr. Harriman and Mr. Morgan. Governments never die but merely recede in +the national consciousness, like the old clothes which we keep in the +attic. Thus revolutions never effect a revolution; democracy is only a +Troy built upon nine other prehistoric Troys: beneath, you find +aristocracy, rule by divine right, despotism, theocracy, and every other +governance on which men in their invincible optimism have pinned their +faith. + +The revolution which Mr. Roosevelt brought about was the kind which +exclaims loudly "malefactors of great wealth" while writing to Mr. +Harriman "we are both practical men." It was the kind of revolution this +country desired. The nation wished to eat its cake and have it, to +retain government by business and have alongside it another government, +as powerful, as interesting, as colorful, as rich in personalities, as +the late autumn of pioneering had brought into gorgeous bloom. + +Mr. Roosevelt's method with the new government was this: Senator Aldrich +and Speaker Cannon representing the still powerful coexistent government +by business in Congress, would call at the White House and tell the +President just how far he could go and no further. They would emerge. A +moment later the press in response to a summons would arrive. Mr. +Roosevelt would say: "I have just sent for Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Cannon +and forced them to accept my policy, etc." Nobody was deceived. Unlike +the philosopher who made all knowledge his province, Mr. Roosevelt made +all knowledge his playground, and not only all knowledge but all the +arts, including the art of government. + +In Mr. Roosevelt's day the two governments, government by business and +political government, existed side by side, of about equal proportions; +and no one really wished either to overtop the other. We were indulging +in revolution with our customary prudence. + +The human passion for equality which had risen against the last of those +dominant figures, the last and greatest of the pioneers, and started to +set up representatives of the public as great as they were, was +singularly fortunate in its first manifestations. It "found a man," in +that most amazing jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Roosevelt. + +If business had its array of extraordinary personalities, the rival +establishment had its Roosevelt, who surrounded himself with a shining +group of amateurs, Mr. Root, Mr. Knox, General Wood, James Garfield, Mr. +Pinchot, Mr. Knox Smith, the "Tennis Cabinet," to all of whom he +succeeded in imparting some vividness from his own abounding +personality. If pioneers from the days of Daniel Boone on have been +romantic, amateurs are equally romantic. It was romance against romance. + +The balance between the two governments did not last long. Government by +business was declining. It was being extruded from the control of +political affairs. Political government was rising. It was reaching out +to control certain phases of business itself. The great pioneers of +national industry were growing old. They were becoming self-conscious, +vaguely aware of changing circumstances, casting about for solider +foundations than "mere money getting," buying art and writing books, +establishing foundations, talking foolishly about their "divine right," +about the crime of "dying rich." + +A race of gamblers came in their train who caricatured their activities. +The great figures who were passing took long chances magnificently, +pioneer fashion, "to strike it rich," to found industries or magnify +avenues of trade. Their imitators, the Gateses, Morses, Heinzes, +and ---- took long chances vulgarly for the excitement there was in them. + +Railroads had to be "rescued" from them. Wall Street had to organize its +Vigilantes against them. + +I went as a reporter to see ---- once in New York and found him in his +library drinking. He sent for his servant, ordered six bottles of +champagne at once, and after his man had gone opened the whole six, one +after another, on his library rug. He had to exhibit in some way his +large manner of doing things, and this was the best way he could think +of at the moment. He belonged to a fevered race, intoxicated with the +idea of bigness, juggling millions about to no more useful end than +that of pouring champagne on a carpet. They were the _reductio ad +absurdum_ of the pioneer. + +The public no longer put its faith blindly as before in those romantic +figures, the great industrial pioneers, those Mississippi River pilots +who knew every rock and reef in the river. Stripped of much power and +prestige, no longer looked to without question for the safety of the +country, that magnificent species, the great pioneer, disappeared. It is +as dead and gone as that equally magnificent species the Mississippi +pilot of Mark Twain's day. + +The legitimate succession was the dynasty--it was the dynasty that +destroyed belief in the divine right of kings--of the second generation, +of the younger Stillman, of the younger Rockefeller, competent but +unremarkable, of the younger Morgan, more capable than the rest, +doubtless, but compare his countenance with the eagle mien of his +predecessor. + +I used often to discuss with Mr. Roosevelt the members of the dynasty. +He had no illusions. We both knew well a second-generation newspaper +proprietor, a young man of excellent character, as prudent as the +earlier generation had been daring, a petty King who always had an +aspiring Mayor of the palace at his elbow, inclined to go to sleep at +his post from excessive watching of his property. As we would go over +the names in the dynasty, Mr. Roosevelt would say almost invariably: "I +can't describe him better to you than to say he's another ----," naming +our mutual acquaintance, one of the many of his sort into whose hands by +inheritance the control of business has descended. + +Whatever the reason is, whether the inertia of large organization and +the weakening of competition have favored the remaining in power of the +second generation, whether we have evolved but one great type, the +pioneer, whose day is past, and have not yet differentiated the true +business man any more than we have differentiated the true statesman; +whether that psychological change which I have sought to trace, that +denial of freedom which once was the pioneers'--the new laws, the hard +restraints operating now upon business as upon everything else and +enforcing conformity--there are today no Titans, no one stealing fire +from the heaven of Progress for the benefit of the human race--unless +Henry Ford--no Carnegies, Morgans, Rockefellers, Harrimans, of the +blessed nineties. + +The old sureness is gone. The great pioneers were never assailed by +doubts: they went straight forward, wearing the blinkers of a single +aim, which kept their eyes like those of harnessed horses in the narrow +road; God was with them, Progress was with them, Public Opinion was with +them, the government at Washington was with them. + +But their successors, like everyone else, look over their shoulders and +see the shadows: see the government at Washington and attach a comic +importance to that bewildered figure; just as the government at +Washington looks over its shoulder and sees at New York the government +by business, its traditional master, and wishing a master, is unaware +that the twilight of the gods is come. And both see that greatest of all +shadows, Public Opinion, the new monster of Frankenstein which everyone +feeds with propaganda, and fears. These three things were all one in the +bright days of the great pioneers, and in that perfect unity everyone +was sure, so sure, and the few were free, so free! + +Business no longer imposes itself up on the imagination through its +extraordinary personalities. In vain do we seek to recover the past. In +vain does the popular magazine fiction strive to furnish what life no +longer does--the pioneer ideal, the hero who overcomes fire and flood +and the machination of enemies and moves irresistibly forward to +success, who believes in himself, whose motto is that the will is not to +be gainsaid, whose life is one long Smile Week. + +Vast propaganda exists to hold us true to the old faith; we read it as +we used to read Sunday School fiction; but religion only sought its way +into hearts within the covers of E. P. Roe when other channels began to +close. We beat the bushes for the great, the kings that should come +after Agamemnon. Monthlies of vast circulation tell us of every +jack-of-all-trades who hits upon a million dollars. This one found out +how to sell patches for automobile tires. That one was an office boy who +never knew when it became five o'clock in the afternoon. Our faith +requires vast stirring. + +To the gradual weakening of the idea that business was all-wise and +all-powerful, the war greatly contributed. Before 1914 men would say +confidently, "Ah, but business, the bankers, will not let the nations +fight. They have only to pull the strings of the purse and there will be +no money for the fighters." After hostilities began they would say with +equal confidence: "It will be all over in six weeks. The bankers will +not let it go on." + +Business was, however, not only powerless to prevent war but it stood by +impotent while the very foundations on which it itself rested were +destroyed. One illusion went. + +Then again, during the war unorganized private production failed. +Publicly organized production was immensely successful. Governments the +world over showed that the industrial mechanism could be made to run +faster and turn out more than ever before. The illusion that business +was a mystery understood only by initiates, the men "'big' financially," +was shaken. + +After the war was over the government organization for regulating +production was abandoned. A period of chaos, rising prices, speculation, +wasteful production, of luxuries, ensued and then a crash. One may +explain all that happened in both cases on the basis of the war. But +business needed triumphs to restore its old place in the public +consciousness, and it has had instead a catastrophe. + +The weakness of business today is its division. Many financial leaders +saw the depression that would follow peace. Frank A. Vanderlip, for one, +came back from Europe in 1919 full of warnings. He counselled +moderation. He urged deflation instead of further inflation. His advice +was unpopular with those who saw profits from a sudden withdrawal of +wartime restraints. And the consequence of his prudence, according to +what he has told his friends, was his being forced to retire from the +Presidency of the great Wall Street bank of which he had been head. + +Henry Ford, moreover, is a destroyer of old illusions. He "defies +economic laws." He does what business says is impossible. In a day of +high prices he produces at an unprecedentedly low price. He does not cut +wages. He finds a market where there is no market. To lower his costs he +needs cheaper steel than he can buy, so he manufactures it himself +cheaper than the great steelmakers can manufacture it. He operates +independently of the "big business" group. Mr. Morgan sends for him and +he declines to go. He grows vastly rich, proving that all the knowledge +the men "'big' financially" have of the mystery of business is no +knowledge at all, only rules made in their own interest. + +And business never twice answers the same question in the same way. One +week Mr. Morgan and the international bankers come to Washington and +tell Mr. Harding that American credit must go into foreign trade. The +next week equally "big" bankers from the interior visit the capital and +tell the President that American credit must stay at home developing +American industries. It is the same with the tariff. It is the same with +the taxes. Business is not of one mind about anything. + +A politician recently described business on errands of advice to +Washington. "One bunch of fat boys with high hats and morning coats +comes to Washington. The Administration holds out its nose wishing to be +led by it. The fat boys decline the nose. They are not leading anybody. +In deprecatory manner they say: 'Please drive North. We think that is +the way.' They go. The next day another bunch of fat boys in high hats +and morning coats arrives. Again the offer of the nose. Again the +declination. And this time: 'Please drive South. We're sure that is the +way.'" + +The government strains its ear to catch the word from Wall Street. But +there never was a time when business had less influence at Washington +than now. It is divided in its own mind, it is ruled by second-rate men. +Of two governments that have occupied a place in the popular +consciousness, government by business and government by parties, I do +not know which is weaker. I do not know which has less unity and +capacity to function, the Republican party or big business. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SUPER-PRESIDENT GOES DOWN IN THE GENERAL SMASH + + +When we became doubtful, as pioneering drew to a close, that business +served a social end; when, becoming jealous of its great and +irresponsible power, we started to set up an equal or greater authority +in Washington, we followed the line of least resistance; we did the easy +and obvious thing; we had recourse to a one man government. + +We magnified the office of President and satisfied that primitive +instinct in us which must see the public welfare and the public safety +personified in a single individual, something visible, tangible, +palpable. The President speaks and you read about him in the daily +press; the President poses and you see him in the movies and feel +assured, as in smaller realms under simpler conditions people were able +to see their monarch dressed and equipaged in ways that connected him +with all the permanence of the past, a symbol of stability, wisdom, and +the divine favor. + +If the trappings are lacking, imagination and the emotions supply their +moral equivalent. Of our little temporary king no one must speak evil; +no voice may be raised in criticism. + +His wife, up till some fourth of March an elderly country woman grown +dull in the monotony of village life or worn with the task of pushing an +unambitious husband forward to power, looking her most natural when in +the frankness of early morning unpreparedness she ran in her apron +across the street to gossip with the wife of a neighbor, becomes to the +awed eyes of Washington women, quite "beautiful." You hear them say it +of every--let us quote the illuminating phrase--every "first lady of the +land." + +When Burke said that aristocracy was the most natural thing in the world +he did not go half far enough. The most natural thing in the world, the +thing which is always repeating itself under no matter whatever form of +government exists, is an autocracy. In national emergencies, in times of +peril, people put their fate in one man's hands; as in the late war when +Mr. Wilson was made by common consent a greater autocrat than any Czar +of all the Russias. + +The herd instinctively follows one authority. The mob is single-headed. +All the traditions of the race lead back toward despotism and it is +easier to revert toward something primitive than to go forward toward +something higher in the scale of development. + +And, moreover, the vital contacts of our lives are with authority +imposed from above. Our childhood is controlled by the autocracy of the +family. Education disposes of our hours, forces our inclinations, +represses our individuality, and turns us out stamped with a uniform +mark, the finished product of its unvarying course. The single head of +the classroom is the teacher. The single head of the school is the +principal, of all the schools the Superintendent. + +More important still, our economic lives are at the disposal of +autocracy. We earn our livings under foremen and managers. Everywhere is +the boss who says to us "Do this or starve." He represents to us not +only authority but wisdom. The organization out of which proceeds to us +the beneficent results of food and clothing operates because he is +endowed with a knowledge which we have not. "He knows about it all, he +knows, he knows." + +In all the essential everyday relations of life we have never been able +to evolve any higher organization than that of the chieftain and his +tribe. We read about democracy in the newspapers; once every two years +or every four years we go through certain motions which vaguely relate +to democracy, and which are not convincing motions. + +Democracy is an artificial edifice imposed upon a society which is in +all other than its political aspects entirely primitive. All our direct +experiences are of one man power. It is the only organization we +actually know at first hand. We trust to it for the means to live. We +revert to it politically whenever it becomes an issue of life and death, +and even in lesser emergencies. + +So it came about that when we determined to have a government at +Washington independent of and better representing the social will, +whatever that might come to be, than the government of business we had +recourse to that one form of rule which is ever present in our +consciousness, the only form under which the race has lived long enough +to have any real faith in it. + +The new social ideal had not sufficiently taken form to utilize all the +complex institutions which existed in this country. Business was at that +time intrenched in Congress. It would have been a huge, an impossible +task, to re-make Congress, especially when no one knew definitely what +purpose should animate the re-making. It was so much easier to find one +man than to find many men. It is so much easier for a people which does +not know where it is going but means to go there to choose one man, and +by an act of faith endow him with the divination of leadership, than it +is to have a national will and express it through numerous +representatives. + +The amplified executive is a sort of blind pool of the national +purposes. Creating an autocracy is an act of faith; democracy is work. +And faith is so much easier than work. + +We did not think of it thus, as an exhibition of political inertia, as a +reversion to an outworn type. On the contrary, we were immensely pleased +with our innovation. As usual the United States had made an immense +contribution to the art of government. We were repeating the race +history of governments, as a child resumes in his life the race history +of the human kind. We had got so far as to evolve that oldest of human +institutions--autocracy, a mild, denatured autocracy. But we were as +proud of it as a boy is when he put on paper with a pencil the very +picture which his stone age ancestor cut laboriously into a walrus +tooth. + +Our President had more power than the King of England, we boasted, more +than the Emperor of Germany. The monarchies of Europe were obsolete +because they preserved autocracy out of the darkness of the Middle Ages. +Our government was in the forefront of progress because it had created +autocracy out of the suffrage of the people. + +And how clever we were with the restrictions of our written constitution +with its exact balance of powers, executive, legislative, and judicial. +The Fathers had builded wiser than they knew in writing an instrument by +which the carefully distributed authority might be well reconcentrated; +as if they were the first to use words whose import depended on the +point of view of those who interpreted them! + +Acres of space in the newspapers were covered with gratulatory articles +proving that the dominating executive was the inevitable unifying +principle in our disjointed and not otherwise workable government. + +Ours was a government by parties, so the argument ran, and the President +was the head of his party. As a matter of fact the writers of the +Constitution had not conceived of a government by parties. What they had +in mind was what they had before them in the Constitutional Convention +of which they were a part, a government by the best and ablest men of +the community, who should meet together and select the executive; who +should equally through the state legislature choose the Senators. The +role of job brokers was the last thing they imagined themselves to be +creating. Parties came later. Ours was not originally a government of +parties. It is hardly a government by parties today. So there was +nothing inevitable about this great reason why the Executive should be +the element in our system which would hold it together and make it work. + +Nor until the beginning of this century did it ever occur to us that the +President was the head of his party. The control of the organization had +been in other hands, in Hanna's or Quay's or Cameron's, or divided among +a group of men like these three, who represented the interests of +business in the parties, and often also in the Senate. + +The idea that the executive was the party's head was merely a happy +afterthought which was adopted to justify the resort to the line of +least resistance in creating a stronger government at Washington, the +concentration upon one man to represent the national will. We had simply +done what other peoples had so often done in the history of mankind. +When the English wished to weaken the rule of the great barons they +magnified the office of the King. When we wished to get away from the +rule of the barons of business we magnified the office of our elective +King, the President. We invented new reasons for an old expedient. + +And by making the amplified executive the head of his party, which we +did--for the Quays and Hannas speedily disappeared under the new order +and left no successors--we set him to sawing off the limb on which he +sat. If his authority rested on that of his party then to be firm the +authority of the party must be firm. For parties to endure and be strong +there must be a certain quality of permanence about them. They must not +rest upon personalities but on principles and jobs, principles for the +disinterested and for those whose interests are expressed in the +principles, and jobs for those whose interests are less large and +indirect. + +Of parties with the executive as their head nothing remained but their +name. The only nexus there could be between the executive and the mass +of voters was personal. One year a party was Roosevelt, the next year it +was Taft and the distance between Roosevelt and Taft was the distance +between East and West. A little later it even changed its name and voted +in another column because Roosevelt had adopted a new party name and +gone unto a new column. Four years later it split up and much of it went +to Wilson, who temporarily rallied a personal following just as +Roosevelt had done. + +And because the dispensing of jobs was an unseemly occupation for the +executive we reduced by law the patronage that was available for the +sustenance of parties. Thus we substituted personal caprice for the +permanency of parties and at the same time cut down the practical means +of holding organizations together. At the same time the decay of +government by business left parties no longer an instrument of the +economic will of the nation. + +Thus the executive headship was wholly inconsistent with government by +parties, upon which our magnified President was supposed to rest. A +further inconsistency was that we adopted another theory for +strengthening one man power. This was that the President was the leader +of the people. Have we a government by parties there? Not at all; the +power of the executive rests upon something outside of and superior to +parties. + +If the legislative did not respond to pressure he might "go to the +people," as it was called, through the newspapers and upon the stump. He +might discipline the recalcitrant by stirring up public sentiment +against them. He might build up a personal following to such an extent +that his party must have it in order to win. He might encourage the +movement away from parties by attaching people to ideas and measures, +policies that the party had declined to accept. In this theory of +executive power it was conceded that parties were not to be trusted. In +the other it was held that they were a necessary link between the +dissociate branches of government. + +It is no exaggerated notion that executive control of parties +contributed to the disintegration of party government. It is nothing +more than a statement of what actually happened. Roosevelt broke up the +Republican party nationally. He left it with its name covering an +agglomeration of groups and blocs and personal followings, supporters of +various interests difficult to reconcile, whose votes fluctuate from +year to year. + +Mr. Hughes, the same kind of executive and party leader as governor of +New York, left the Republicans of that state in the hands of the little +local banditti. Mr. La Follette, following the same methods as Governor +of Wisconsin, left no one in that state definitely a Republican or a +Democrat. Every voter there is the personal follower of some chieftain. + +And what virtue is there in the theory that the Executive alone +represents the national point of view, that he alone speaks "for the +country?" Political inertia always finds good excuses. + +There are reasons why the President should try to represent the country +as a whole, since he is elected in a nationwide balloting. But there is +no reason why he should succeed in representing the country as a whole, +why he should have a national point of view. + +Why should Mr. Harding have a vast understanding of national problems +and a clear sense of the country's will? A little while ago he was a +Senator, and the supposition that the Executive alone has the national +point of view implies that a Senator has not that point of view. Mr. +Harding is chosen President and immediately upon his election by some +magic virtue of his office he is endowed with insight and imagination +which he did not possess as Senator. + +Mr. Harding is a good average President, a typical President, whether of +the United States or of a business corporation, just the kind of man to +put at the head of a going concern where a plodding kind of safeness is +required of the executive. We shall do well, should our standards of +public life remain what they are, if we have three Presidents superior +to Mr. Harding in energy or originality of mind, during the whole of the +coming century. But why should Mr. Harding understand or represent the +national point of view? + +Mr. Harding lived his life in the indolent comfortable mental +atmosphere of a small town. His horizon was narrow and there was no +force in him which made him seek to widen it. His public experience +before coming to Washington consisted of brief service in the Ohio State +legislature and a term as Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio. His service in +the Senate at Washington was short and it was beginner's work, +undertaken in the spirit of a man who finds the upper house a pleasant +place in which to pass the latter years of a never strenuous life. + +His point of view on national problems was a second-hand point of view. +He knew about them what his party had said about them, in its platforms, +on the stump, in the press. He accepted the accepted opinions. No magic +wrought by election to the Presidency could make of him or of anyone +else a great representative of the national purpose or endow him or +anyone else with deep understanding of national problems. + +Of recent Presidents Mr. Taft failed so completely to understand his +people and express its will that after four years in office he could +command the support of only two states when seeking re-election. Mr. +Wilson after four years had so far failed that only the incredible +stupidity of his opponents enabled him to succeed himself; and again so +far, that his second term ended in a tragedy. The floundering of Mr. +Harding is apparent to every eye. + +Only under two Presidents has the theory of executive domination of the +Government succeeded, and not completely under them. Congress rose +against Mr. Roosevelt in the last year or two of his administration. +Congress was not of Mr. Wilson's party, and was thus out of his control +in the last two years of his administration. Mr. Taft lacked the will to +rule. Mr. Harding is feebler than Mr. Taft, and party authority, one of +the pillars of executive power and responsibility, is now completely +broken down. A system which is successful only half the time cannot be +called workable. + +Let us examine the circumstances under which the Executive was able to +prevail over Congress and effect a limited sort of one man government. +They are not likely soon to repeat themselves. + +Mr. Roosevelt was an extraordinary personality. Only Andrew Jackson, +among our Presidents, was as picturesque as he, only Andrew Jackson had +a popular following comparable to his. + +Both of them represented strong democratic movements,--Jackson the +extrusion of the landed aristocracy, in favor of the masses, from their +preferred position in our political life; Mr. Roosevelt, the similar +extrusion of the business aristocracy, in favor of the masses from the +preferred position they had gained in our political life. Like +agitations of the political depths, finding expression in personalities +as unusual as those of Jackson and Roosevelt, will give us from time to +time executives who may carry everything before them; but only +emergencies like this and one other will make the President supreme. + +And even then it is easy to overstate the power of the Executive as it +was exercised by Mr. Roosevelt. The Colonel lived by picturesque +exaggeration. If he went to South America it was to discover a river and +find animals that the eye of man never rested on before or since. He +read more books than it was humanly possible to read and not become a +pallid bookworm. He pursued more interests than mere man can have. He +exercised daily as only a pugilist exercises briefly when in training. + +He had the gusto of the greatest amateur of all time and enjoyed the +immunity which is always granted to amateurs, that of never being +measured by professional standards. When you might have been noting a +weakness in one direction he was diverting you by an enormous exhibition +of versatility in another. He had the capacity of seeming, and the +semblance was never penetrated. He seemed to bestride Washington like a +Colossus. Actually his rule was one long compromise with Aldrich and +Cannon, the business leaders of Congress, which he represented as a +glorious triumph over them. + +One man government was developed much further under Mr. Wilson than +under Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harding's predecessor entered office as the +expression of that movement toward a government based on numbers rather +than on wealth, which the Colonel had so imperfectly effected. There had +been a reaction under Taft; there was a new determination under Wilson, +and a new concentration on the executive. + +Poor, bookish, without the friendships in the business world which Mr. +Roosevelt had had, having few contacts with life, Mr. Wilson embraced +the idea of putting business in its place passionately, where Mr. +Roosevelt played with it as he played with everything else. + +Mr. Wilson was by temperament an autocrat. An illustration of how +personal was his government was his treatment of his enemies. His +bitterness against Huntington Wilson, the Republican Ambassador to +Mexico, is well known. A year or two after the dispute was over, +Huntington Wilson's son came up for examination to enter the Consular +service. He passed at the top of the list. President Wilson heard of his +success and directed that he should receive no appointment. He carried +his enmity to the second generation. The law which would have given +young Mr. Wilson a place meant nothing under his personal government. + +As Anatole France says of Robespierre, he "_était optimiste qui croyait +á la vertue_." Those who are "optimists and believe in virtue," remarks +the French author, end by killing men. Wilson in a revolution would have +conducted a Terror, as indeed during the war he did conduct a sort of +legal terror among pacifists and radicals. Roosevelt belonged to the +other school in the conduct of affairs which Anatole France praises +because it never forgets that men are "_des mauvais singes_." In a +revolution Roosevelt would have cut off no more heads than would be +necessary to make a good show. + +Moreover, when Mr. Wilson entered office his party had been long out of +power. Its leaders in the House and Senate were not firmly established. +Unlike Cannon and Aldrich, of the Roosevelt day, they did not represent +business in the national legislature. They had no authority except the +purely factitious authority created by the accident of seniority. They +were easily dominated from the White House. + +Coming into power at such a moment, possessing such a temperament, +representing such a popular movement, Mr. Wilson readily became the most +perfect example of the concentrated executive that we have yet had. But +even his one man government was attacked from the outset. His +personality proved repellent. An intellectual is so unfamiliar an object +in America as to seem almost a monstrosity, and his ascendancy would not +have lasted beyond two years if the war had not come. + +War is the other great cause that leads to autocracy in popular +governments. In times of common danger we revert to the herd with the +single leadership. We resort to the only form of rule of which we have +any experience in our daily lives, the only form in which the race has +yet developed any lasting faith. From the time when war threatened, with +the invasion of Belgium, till the time when it ended with the armistice, +Mr. Wilson became what any President may become under like +circumstances, what Mr. Wilson's temperament especially fitted him to +become--an absolute dictator. + +When we think of the powerful executive as the natural development of +the American system, imparting that unity to our government which the +makers of the Constitution in their zeal for checks and balances refused +to give it, we are over-impressed by the phenomena of Roosevelt and +Wilson and do not make sufficient allowances for the conditions which +made their power inevitable. So impossible is it for authority to remain +permanently in the hands of the executive that we are now witnessing its +spontaneous movement away from the White House--toward, well for the +moment I should say, toward nowhere. + +A distinguished alienist tells me that the desire for power over your +fellow man is an unmistakable sign of paranoia, not necessarily paranoia +amounting to insanity, but the same kind of paranoia which makes history +amusing. If that is true, then we are in an era of perfect sanity at +Washington. No one, no one, in the White House, in the Capitol, in Wall +Street, the capitol of business, or back among the home folks, as far +as I can learn, wants power--and responsibility. + +The picture I have drawn, quoting a bright young observer at the capital +of what happens when Business arrives in Washington is the picture of +our whole present national political organization. "A bunch of +tall-hatted fat boys comes. The governmental nose is thrust out awaiting +the guiding hand. The guiding hand is put unostentatiously behind the +back." It is the same when the organ of leading is extended from the +White House for the hand of leadership at the Capitol, or, as happens, +as often the organ of leading at the Capitol awaits the hand of +leadership at the White House. + +Power is in transition and we do much inconsistent thinking about where +it is and where it should be. We deliberately elected a weak executive, +to retrieve the blessed days of McKinley, the old equilibrium and +co-ordination of the equal and co-ordinate branches of our government. +Yet when things go badly in Congress, as they mostly do, the critics +exclaim that the President should be firm and "assert his authority" on +the hill. Mr. Harding himself said, over and over again, "This is no one +man job at Washington." Yet we read that his face assumes a "determined +expression"--I have myself never seen it--and he sends for the leaders +in Congress. + +We haven't executive domination and we haven't anything in its place. +We voted to go back to the nineties, but we haven't got there. There is +no Mark Hanna speaking for business and for party to make the system +work. We have the willessness of the blessed days in our National +Heartbreak House, but we haven't the will somewhere else to act and +direct. Not even seven million majority is enough to bring back the +past. In spite of "landslides" the course is always forward, and I use +"forward" not in the necessarily optimistic sense of those who were once +so sure of Progress. + +The initiative, so far as there is any, has passed to Congress. + +And so far as I can see, it is likely to remain with Congress, until +some new turn of events brings us back the strong executive. For, after +all, Congress chose Mr. Harding. The Senators picked him at Chicago. +With party bosses gone, they are about all that remains of the party, +and there is no reason why they should not go on naming Presidents. And +the power of presidents will not rise much above its source. + +The autocratic President goes inevitably the way its prototype the +autocrat went. The loins that produce them are sufficiently fertile. +Primogeniture brought forth feeble kings. The nominating system called +on for a great man every four years yields many feeble ones. There will +be many Hardings to one Roosevelt or Wilson. Party government which +might reinforce a feeble president is weak. Government by business has +lost its confidence and authority. The great discovery of the first +decade of this century for making this government of ours work is +already in the discard. + +So at a critical moment when government by Progress and government by +business have broken down, government by one man at Washington has also +gone. The war made the autocratic executive in the person of Mr. Wilson +intolerable. It also destroyed the basis for national concentration upon +the executive. + +We need a new picture in our heads of what government should be, what +its limits should be when it faces such vital problems as interfering +with God's time, and where its authority should center. We have none. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LOOKING FOR ULTIMATE WISDOM--IN THE BOSOM OF THÉRÈSE + + +We now pursue further the search for authority. We shall surely find +"divine right" somewhere, now that business has lost it. Someone +certainly has the final word about the pictures to put in our heads. Ah! +there is the public, the imputation of a miraculous quality to whose +opinion has a curious history. + +Everybody agrees that we owe most of the pleasant illusions upon which +this democracy of ours is based to Rousseau. This Swiss sentimentalist +about humanity, whose ideas have so profoundly affected the history of +the last century and a half, was a convinced believer that perfect good +sense resided in the bosom of the natural man, the man "born free and +equal" of our Declaration of Independence. + +Rousseau could find this simple wisdom which was his delight in the most +unexpected places. He describes his mistress Thérèse with whom he lived +many happy years: "Her mind is what nature has made it; cultivation is +without effect. I do not blush to avow that she has never known how to +read, although she writes passably. When I went to live in the Rue Neuve +des Petits Champs I had opposite my windows a clock face on which I +tried during several months to teach her to tell time. She can scarcely +do it even now. She has never known in their order the twelve months of +the year, and she does not know a single figure in spite of all the +pains I have taken to explain them to her.... But this person, so +limited and, if you wish, so stupid, has excellent judgment on occasions +of difficulty. Often in my troubles she has seen what I did not see +myself; she has given me the best advice to follow. She has pulled me +out of dangers into which I rushed blindly.... The heart of my Thérèse +was the heart of an angel. (_Le coeur de ma Thérèse était celui d'un +ange._)" + +It would be amusing to trace our belief in the good sense of man, in the +wisdom and justice of public opinion, back to a philosopher's delight in +a female moron; but that would be too great a paradox for a serious +discussion of today's crisis in popular government. The truth probably +is that Rousseau reached _a priori_ the conclusions about the sound +sense of the simple and natural man that captivated a society so simple +and natural as our own was in the eighteenth century, and then stumbled +upon such convincing evidence in the person of Thérèse that he had to +keep it by him all the rest of his days. + +And where after all has there been found any better evidence for our +belief in the soundness and justice of public opinion than was furnished +by the unlettered and unteachable Thérèse, who had "le cœur d'un ange" +and "devant les dames du plus haut rang, devant les grands et les +princes, ses sentiments, son bon sens, ses réponses et sa conduite lui +out tiré l'estime universelle"? + +To accept the doctrine of the rightness of public opinion you must +believe that there resides in every man, even in the most unpromising +man, of the mental level of Thérèse, "si bornée et, si l'on veut, si +stupide," the capacity to be, like her, "d'un conseil excellent dans les +occasions difficiles." + +The doctrine of the rightness of public opinion, however, never required +proof. It was a political necessity. The world at the time when modern +democracies had their birth accepted government only because it rested +upon divine right. The government of men by mere men has always been +intolerable. + +The new democracies which were to take the place of the old kingdoms had +to have some sanction other than the suffrages of the people. Room had +to be found in them somewhere for divine right. Those who established +the modern system could never have sold self-government to the people as +self government. There had to be some miracle about it, something +supernatural, like that marvel which turned a mere man into a King and +gave him that power of healing by touch which was exercised in Galilee, +so that the laying on of his hands cured the king's evil. + +The miracle was accomplished somewhere in the process through which your +opinion and my opinion and Thérèse's opinion became public opinion. Just +as the anointment or the coronation turned a mere human being by a +miracle into the chosen of God ruling by divine right, so by some +transmutation which does not take place before the eyes, mere human +opinion becomes itself the choice of God, ruling by divine right. + +If you doubt that the founders of modern democracy had to carry over +into their systems the old illusions about divine right, read what +Thomas Jefferson, more or less a free thinker, quoted by Mr. Walter +Lippmann in his _Public Opinion_, has to say about the divine basis for +popular government: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people +of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His +peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in +which He keeps alive that sacred fire which might otherwise escape from +the earth." + +That "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue" was public opinion. +Nothing was lost of the sanctions of monarchic government when we +changed to popular government. + +Since the days of Jefferson we have ceased to be an agricultural people +and we can no longer derive the authority of our government from the +Rousseauist notion that the farmer, being near to nature, thrusting his +hands into the soil, was the choice of God and ruled by a kind of divine +right. But "aucune réligion n'est jamais morte, ni ne mourra jamais." + +Let us examine the doctrine of Jefferson. Public opinion ruled by divine +right because, in this country and in his day, it was the opinion of +farmers, who were "the chosen people of God whose breasts He has made +the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." + +When we ceased to be a nation of farmers did we abandon the basis of our +government in divine right? Not in the least. We broadened our ground to +cover the added elements of the community and went along further with +Rousseau than Jefferson had need to do; we said that the breasts of all +men "He has made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine +virtue." The art of uncovering their substantial and genuine virtue, +this quality in Thérèse which drew down upon her universal esteem for +her good sense and her sound sentiments, is the art of arriving at +public opinion. + +The legend of public opinion is thus accounted for; first, you will +observe, it was politically necessary to assert the inspiration of +public opinion, for divine right had to reside somewhere. Second, in a +democracy the press and public men had to flatter the mass of voters and +readers by declaring on every possible occasion that wisdom reposed in +their breasts. And third, the public mind differed so from the ordinary +thinking mind that, to put its conclusions in a favorable light, men had +to assume some supernatural quality, some divine "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue." + +The public did not think, in the ordinary sense, yet its decisions were +more right than the carefully elaborated decisions of those who did +think; the wonder of Thérèse over again, who "si bornée et si stupide" +gave such excellent advice on difficult occasions. No processes by which +results were reached could be perceived by the trained mind. The mystery +of the public mind was as great as the mystery of intuitions is to the +logical or the mystery of poetry is to the prosaic. Clearly, a miracle; +clearly, a deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. + +When modern democracy got its start, kings by their folly had shaken +faith in their divine right. In a similar way at this moment, public +opinion by its excesses has made men question whether any "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue" has been placed in human breasts upon +which states may rely for justice and wisdom. + +Walter Lippmann's book, _Public Opinion_, with its destructive analysis +of the public mind, is a symptom of those doubts with which the war has +left us. The years from 1914 on furnished the most perfect exhibition of +public opinion and its workings that the world has ever seen. You saw on +a grand scale its miraculous capacity for instant formation and, if you +are sufficiently detached now, you look back and doubt whether what was +revealed was a "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." + +Both sides to the conflict resembled nothing so much as prehistoric +tribes meeting accidentally in the night and, precipitated into panic, +fighting in the belief that each was being attacked by the other. + +Public opinion in France and England felt that the war was defensive. +Public opinion in Germany was equally sure that Germany was only +defending herself. Either the German Thérèse or the French Thérèse and +the English Thérèse and the American Thérèse must have been wrong. The +fight could not have been defensive on both sides. And if Thérèse is +ever so wrong as this, the whole case of the divine rightness of public +opinion falls. + +And not only do we know that some Thérèse, perhaps all the Thérèses, +made a mistake in this instance, but we have come to feel that whenever +danger arises Thérèse is inevitably wrong; her mind, such as it is, +closes up and she fails to show those _sentiments_ and that _bon sens_ +which drew down the applause of the princes and the persons _du haut +rang_ who have been praising the deposit of virtue that she carries in +her breast. + +We have watched the course of Thérèse confronted by other and smaller +fears since the close of the war, and we have reached the conclusion +that Thérèse always reacts a certain way. In that large range of +situations which may be artfully presented to her simple mind as perils +she is no longer _d'un conseil excellent_; her heart _d'un ange_ +hardens; she abandons her babies quite unfeelingly at the hospital of +the _Nouveaux Nés_. + +Therefore you do not reach the "deposit for virtue" by simply employing +an intelligence unencumbered by mental processes. You must at least +assure that intelligence against fear, a serious limitation upon the +doctrine of an infallible public opinion. + +Students of public opinion will for a long time go back to the period of +the war for their materials. Opinion was then unmistakable. The methods +by which it was formed were clear. In times of great peril men throw off +their polite disguises and are frank; so too are institutions. + +The making of opinion became an official function in which we all +co-operated. We bound ourselves voluntarily not to publish and not to +regard any information inconsistent with the state of mind which it was +deemed expedient to create and maintain. We probably always in the +forming of opinion tacitly impose voluntary censorships, but they are +so habitual, so unconscious, so covered with traditional hypocrisy, that +it is difficult to bring them into the light. + +Conscious self-deception to the good end of keeping ourselves united and +determined was during the war a great virtue. Playing upon prejudice, +rousing the depths of the primitive mind in man, was a laudable act of +patriotism. + +What happened then was only an exaggeration of what happens all the +time, for war makes no new contributions to the art of self-government. +In war we merely throw off the restraints of peace and impose others +which operate in the reverse direction. In peace we are shamefaced about +direct killing; in war we brag of it. In peace we are shamefaced about +manufacturing public opinion; in war it is our patriotic duty. + +No, war has made us rather doubtful about Thérèse. After all Rousseau +was a prejudiced witness. When you take to your bosom a lady who cannot +learn to tell time by the clock, you have to make out a case for her--or +for yourself. When like Jefferson and his successors you take to your +bosom the public, you have to make out a case for it, for the deposit +for substantial and genuine virtue that you rely upon. + +The war revealed at once the immense power and the immense dangers of +public opinion when its full force is aroused and one hundred million +people come to think--thinking is not the word--to feel, as one man. +Minorities, the great corrective in democracy, disappeared. They had +their choice of going to jail or bowing to the general will. + +Few realized this alternative, so irresistible was the mob impulse, +awakened by the sense of common danger, even to individuals ordinarily +capable of maintaining their detachment. The primitive instinct of +self-preservation subdued all capacity for independent thinking, so that +one who has ordinarily the habit of making up his own mind, a most +difficult habit to maintain in modern society, can not look back on +himself during the war without a sense of shame. Romain Rolland, in +_Clérambeault_, pictures the devastating effect of public opinion at its +mightiest upon the individual conscience. + +The mechanism by which this state of mind was created was unconcealed. +The government reserved to itself the right to suppress truth or to put +out untruth for the common good. Private organizations of endless number +co-operated to this laudable end. The press submitted itself to a +voluntary censorship, passing the responsibility for what it printed +over to society whose general end of maintaining unity for the real or +imaginary necessities of self-defense it served. A lynch law of opinion +was established by common consent. + +What went on during the war goes on, though less openly and less +formidably, all of the time. Everyone realizes the immense power of +public opinion. Many seek to direct its formation. The government +conducts all of the time a vast propaganda, always with a certain favor +of the press. + +We submit always to a certain voluntary censorship, not so conscious as +that which existed during the war but none the less real. We receive +upon the whole the information which is good for us to receive. We are +all a little afraid of public opinion, its tyranny, its excesses, its +blind tendencies. We do not find it, as Jefferson thought we should, a +"deposit for substantial and genuine virtue," and we are all more or +less consciously trying to make it one; that is the process of rendering +modern democracy workable; but we may not be all unprejudiced about what +the deposit should be or scrupulous about the means of improving it. + +The part which the press plays in this process is peculiar. When editors +or correspondents meet together the speaker addresses them invariably +as, "You makers of public opinion," but the last responsibility which +journalism cares to assume is the making of public opinion. + +This disinclination began with the exclusion of the editor's opinion +from the news columns. Gradually, it extended to the exclusion of his +opinion from the editorial pages and finally to its exclusion from his +own mind. I am speaking only of tendencies, not of their complete +realization, for there are notable exceptions among the greater dailies +of this country. + +This movement is at its strongest in the nation's capital, for official +Washington likes to live in an intellectual vacuum, and journalism +strives successfully to please. With the world crashing about his ears +the editor of the _Star_, the best newspaper in the capital, finds this +to say: + +"The Crown Prince of Japan and the Prince of Wales are young men +destined for great parts in world affairs. They are now qualifying for +their work. + +"Last year the former took his first look around in the occidental +world. He was everywhere most cordially received, and returned home +informed and refreshed by what he had seen and heard. His vision, +necessarily, was considerably enlarged. + +"The latter is now taking his first look around in the oriental world. +In a few days he will land in Japan and be the guest of the country for +a month. The arrangements for his entertainment are elaborate, and +insure him with a delightful and a profitable visit. That he will return +home informed and refreshed by his travels is certain. + +"The war has produced a new world, which in many things must be ordered +in new ways. Young men for action; and here are two young men who when +they get into action and into their stride will be prominent and +important in the world picture." + +But if a newspaper rigidly excludes its editor's opinions from its +columns, it is singularly hospitable to all other opinions. The +President twice a week may edit the papers of the entire country, or Mr. +Hughes may do it every day,--or Mr. Hoover or Mr. Daugherty for that +matter, even having extended to him the privilege of anonymity which +editors used to keep to themselves, as a device for giving force and +effect to their ideas. + +The President "sees the press" Tuesdays and Fridays, volunteering +information or answering questions. Mr. Hughes holds daily receptions. +Everyone else big enough to break into print follows the same practice. + +A curious modesty prevails. Every public man loves to see his name in +the newspapers, yet no one of them at these conferences will assume +responsibility for what he says. All of them resort to the editorial +practice of anonymity. + +The rule is that the correspondents must not quote Mr. Harding or Mr. +Hughes or anyone else. + +They must not write "Mr. Harding said" or "Mr. Hughes said." They must +print what Mr. Harding or Mr. Hughes said as a fact; that is, they must +put the authority of their paper behind it or, if they doubt, they must +assign for it "a high authority," thus putting the authority of their +paper behind it at one remove. + +The editor, having excluded his own opinions from his news columns, +opens his news columns to Mr. Harding's or Mr. Hughes's opinions, giving +no guide to the reader whether he is printing fact or opinion, and, if +obviously opinion, as to whose opinion it is. + +The rule is, nothing but news in the news column. The news is, "Mr. +Harding said so and so." But what is printed is, "so and so is a fact" +or, "so and so the paper believes on unimpeachable authority to be a +fact." + +This official control of news columns goes further. Not only, according +to the rules, must the source of certain information be regarded as a +confidence but essential facts themselves may not be disclosed. + +One of the most remarkable uses of the news columns to create public +opinion was that of Attorney-General Palmer whose several announcements +of red revolution in the United States startled the country two years +ago. A series of sensational plots was described. Very soon every +intelligent correspondent felt sure that Mr. Palmer was largely +propaganding. But to say so would have been to violate that law against +the expression of opinion in news columns, so essential to the truth and +accuracy of our press. Moreover, if my memory is correct, somewhere in +the series the Attorney-General told the press, in confidence, that he +was putting forth his stories of revolution for a purpose. But one does +not print confidences. + +In this case the news was that Attorney-General Palmer was issuing +stories of discovered revolutionary plots to combat a certain radicalism +in the labor movement. As printed it was that Attorney-General Palmer +said--he permitted his name to be used--that he had discovered +revolutionary plots. + +But the uncritical reader does not ask himself whether the +Attorney-General may not be lying. And even if he were inclined to do so +the headline throws him off his guard, for in the limited space +available for captions, mere assertions tend to become facts. As it +reached the reader's mind the fact that Mr. Palmer was avowedly issuing +propaganda became the fact that evidences of a great Bolshevist plot +against our institutions were being discovered almost daily. + +There are disadvantages in the official editing of news columns. The +official does not always escape by shifting responsibility to the +editor. The British during the Washington Conference introduced an +improvement. They put out propaganda which had no authority at all. This +the newspapers either had to leave out or to print on their own +authority. + +Lord Riddell had "no official connection with the British delegation." +He had moreover a perfect alibi. There was Sir Arthur Willert, the +official spokesman, who knew nothing and told nothing. Riddell's was a +private enterprise. He was just a journalist willing to share with +other journalists what information he collected. Just a journalist? +Well, it was true that "Lloyd George had asked him to stay on" when he +was on the point of departing. But that was a confidence and under the +rules the press does not print confidences. + +Riddell's disclosures were perfectly timed. The best of them came out in +the morning when afternoon correspondents must either rush them through +as facts--they could not even say "on the highest authority"--or explain +to their editors why they had been beaten by their rivals. + +Riddell is one of the British Premier's intimates. A lawyer turned +newspaper proprietor, he brings out the _News of the World_, a London +Sunday publication, sensational and trashy, of which 3,500,000 copies or +some such preposterous number are sold. He started in during the war as +a spokesman for the British Premier. He kept it up at the Paris +Conference. And at Washington he scored his greatest success. + +What he had said at his seance was, "Now, of course, I don't know, but I +imagine the Conference will do thus and so." He was delightfully +irresponsible, having no official connection. He could leak when he had +anything to leak. He could guess, near the truth or far from the truth, +for, after all, he was only "imagining." He joked. He indulged in +buffoonery. He put out propaganda when he wished. But he mixed enough +truth with it all so that the correspondents thronged his meetings. So +far as there was publicity at the Conference, he was that publicity. + +There was nothing of the great man about him. He did not pretend to be a +statesman. He did not take himself seriously. He reached out for his +public in the same undress way that he does in his Sunday newspaper. +"Ex-tra-ter-ri-to-ri-al-ity," he would say, "that's a long word. I never +heard it before I came here." "Kow Loon, where is the place anyway?" You +felt that for the British Empire these places and issues were +trivialities. + +He was familiar, quite inoffensively. "The highly intelligent seal of +the Associated Press--was it Mr. Hood here?--must have been under the +table in the committee room when he got this story. He knows more about +it than I do." He was humorous. "The Conference means to do good and, +according to the well known rule--what is it?--Oh, yes! 'Cast your bread +upon the waters'--and by--er--a certain repercussion we all expect to +benefit." + +It was not said cynically. It was no effort to be funny. It was natural +and inevitable. Lord Riddell himself did good to the press, and by a +certain repercussion the British Empire benefited. It was a publicity +"stunt" that has never been equalled. Never before did one man have +world opinion so much in his hands. Only Riddell's personality, his +friendliness, his apparent disingenuousness, his trifling, enabled him +to exercise his power--these and the immense demand for publicity, where +aside from his there was little. + +[Illustration: LORD RIDDELL] + +The hospitality of news columns is not extended to officials alone. A +vast industry second only to that of news collecting has been built up +for the purpose of conveying opinions to readers in the guise of news. +Its constant growth is a proof of its success. + +The reason for the opening of newspaper columns to it is commercial. A +variety of interests and opinions tends to reflect itself, as at Paris, +in a multiplicity of newspapers. The American newspaper proprietor has +avoided competition by steadily restricting the expression of opinion +first in the news columns and then on the editorial page, so as to +offend as few of his readers as possible, and then opening his news +columns to opinions which he could not approve on his editorial page, +provided they could be disguised as news. + +But the faults of public opinion as a governing force do not spring from +an uncritical journalism, conducted in haste and under compulsion to be +interesting rather than adequate, too little edited by its editors and +too much edited by others. The trouble with Thérèse is her lack of mind. +In spite of her good sense and habit of giving excellent advice she is +_bornée et, si l'on veut, stupide_. We do not find in her what +Rousseau was convinced he found in her, "a deposit for substantial and +genuine virtue." + +We know more about the public mind today than Jefferson did when he +wrote about it. We have studied the psychology of the mob and we know +that the psychology of the public is not different. Like the mind of +Thérèse, the public mind has never grown up; with this difference, that +the mind of Thérèse never could grow up and the mind of the public, we +hope, will. + +The public mind is young. Only for a very few years in the history of +the race has there been any such thing as a conscious public. Jefferson +was right in thinking that its mind was not the sum of the individual +minds: nevertheless, it is not a "deposit for virtue." Men act in a mass +quite differently from the way they act as individuals, only +unfortunately there is not any necessary divine rightness about the way +they act: there is often divine wrongness. + +We have built up the machinery for converting one hundred million widely +scattered people into a public, for giving it a sense of community, but +we have not at an equal rate built up a public mind. + +With the telegraph, the wireless telephone, the standardized press, the +instant bulletin going everywhere, we can stir the whole people as a +mob, make it revert into a frightened herd, but we can not make it +think. + +The public is too young to have a developed mind. In a hundred +generations it may have one. + +This experiment in democracy is conducted in the faith that it will have +one, that the mass of mankind may be lifted up so that there will be as +much freedom of thinking in a democratic society as there once was in an +aristocratic society. It is the bravest experiment in history but its +success is afar off, Rousseau's belief in Thérèse to the contrary +notwithstanding. + +In the present state of undeveloped mind and overdeveloped machinery of +communication public opinion is a great negative force. It does nothing +constructive. It can only be thoroughly aroused by a suggestion of +danger. Statesmen are both afraid of it and despise it, and between +contempt and fear are reduced to temporary expedients. + +So that when we speak of government by public opinion we speak of +something that has been as badly shaken as government by business, or +executive government or party government or any one of the various +governments upon which we once relied. The war has made it almost as +intolerable as it made autocracy, as practiced by Mr. Wilson. + +Shall official Washington turn to public opinion as its guide? Official +Washington is busy all the time with all the arts it used during the war +shaping public opinion to its own ends. It must have been hard for a +king's minister to believe in the divinity of the monarch he was +gulling. And at any moment public opinion may belong to Mr. Hearst. + +This new ruler by divine right is not going to be so easy to dethrone as +his predecessors. No new Rousseau will discern a new Thérèse. Mr. Walter +Lippmann would set up in its place the expert by divine right, but the +expert is a palpable pretender. + +The best hope for the present moment is perhaps to divide the public. +Minorities based on interest will at least be constructive. Organized, +they may offer an effective resistance. Out of them may come a +development of the public mind. + +If Jefferson were writing today he might say that the farm bloc +contained the "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." At any rate +it tills the soil. + +If we break up the threatening mass which the war has taught us to fear, +there might be organized a thinkers' bloc. Thinking in this country +certainly needs a bloc. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHALL WE FIND OUR SALVATION SITTING, LIKE MR. MELLON, ON A PILE OF +DOLLARS + + +The conditions which face Mr. Harding are like those which face the +administrator of a corporation left by its old head and creator to the +direction of an incompetent son. The young man is the nominal master of +the business. He lacks confidence in himself and what is worse still his +wife and mother lack confidence in him. They have fortified him with a +brother-in-law as a right hand man. His brother-in-law knows little of +the business and can never forget that he is the creature of his sister +and her mother-in-law. + +The administrator of this corporation wishes to obtain a decision upon +policy. The proprieties require him to consult its nominal head. The +young man, unsure of himself, must talk it over with the mentor whom his +wife and mother have provided. He in turn proves no final authority but +must discuss the question with his sister. Ultimately the widow who owns +most of the stock must be approached. She hires others to run the +property, wonders why they do not run it. The very fact that the others +could reach no decision makes her cautious about reaching one herself. +The administrator goes vainly about this circle seeking for a "yes" or +"no." + +The government was simple when the public had faith in the social +purposes of business and public opinion did not differ greatly from +business opinion. Parties reflected the will of business. Authority was +centered. Whether you said it resided in parties or in business or in +public opinion made little difference. There was substantial agreement. +A "yes" or "no" was easy. + +Suppose Mr. Harding should be in doubt, as he is so often--today. He +asks himself what is party opinion, what is business opinion, what is +public opinion, or what is the opinion of some powerful minority which +may turn an election against him. + +His party has no opinion; it exists by virtue of its capacity to think +nothing about everything and thus avoid dissensions. Business is of two +minds and is moreover afraid of the public. It will assume no +responsibility. Public opinion, what is it? Mr. Hearst's newspapers? Or +the rest of the press? Or the product of the propaganda conducted from +Washington? Or something that Mr. Harding may create himself if he will? +Minority opinion is definite, but is it safe? Where is authority? + +A return to those happy days when authority did center somewhere, when +in conducting the business you did not have to run around the whole +circle seeing the young man, his wife, his brother-in-law, and the widow +who inherited the property, is our constant dream. Let us get back to +party government, exclaimed Mr. Harding; so the nation voted to do so, +only to find there were neither parties nor party government. + +Let us, then, it is suggested, found some new party that will "stand for +something," that will synthesize in one social aim, the common element +in the aims of various interests into which the country is divided. But +no one can point out the common basis, the principle which the new party +shall advocate. + +Let us then have a better informed public opinion. Mr. Walter Lippmann +in his new book upon the subject, despairing of the press, would put the +making of public opinion in the hands of experts, collecting the truth +with the impartiality of science. + +We seek unity as perhaps the builders of Babel sought it after the +confusion of tongues fell upon them. + +One favorite hope of attaining it is through a new synthesis of business +and politics. Government by business had worked. Let us return to Eden. +Let us elect a business man President. One may substitute for President +in this last sentence Governor or Mayor or Senator or Congressman, for +whatever the office is, this recipe is always suggested. + +Thus, so it is piously hoped, we may get back to those good old times +before we builded for ourselves this Babel, a government that was +independent of business, parties that were independent of everything +under the sun, voters that were independent of parties, a press that was +independent, a propaganda that was independent, and blocs that knew no +rule but their own. + +Elect the business man to office, so it is felt, and you will have an +important synthesis, an old and tried one, one that worked, business and +politics. You will do more. You will import into public life all that +wonderful efficiency which we read about in the _American Magazine_, +that will to power, that habit of getting things done, that instant +capacity for decision which we romantically associate with commercial +life. All this is in the minds of those who urge this method of +achieving unity. + +We have no greater national illusion than the business man illusion. In +any other country a business man is just a business man; in America he +is a demigod. Golden words, as Mark Twain said, flow out of his mouth. +He performs miracles. He has erected a great industry and amassed a +large fortune. Therefore he would make a great public official. We never +think of him as merely a specialist having a narrow aptitude for heaping +up money. + +The reasoning about the business man is this. Success, real success, +comes to the jack of all trades, a major premise handed down from +pioneer days. "A" is a real success, for he has made several millions. +Therefore "A" is a jack of all trades. Therefore he would be as great a +President as he is a shoe button manufacturer. + +We owe the business-man illusion to the pioneers. In a few years they +subjected a continent to our uses. They accumulated for themselves +wealth such as the world had never seen. The nation does not think of +them as the luckiest of a generation facing such virgin resources as +existed on no other continent, at a moment when means of transportation +such as the world had never seen before, and machinery for manufacture +without parallel were in their hands. The marvelous element was not the +opportunity but the men. + +One day they were telegraphers, day laborers, railroad section hands and +the next they were colossal figures of American enterprise. As their +like existed nowhere else they became the American type. They +established the tradition of American business. + +It has been a tradition profitable to keep alive. The men who by luck, +by picking other men's wits, or by the possession of a special talent, +useful only in a society like our own, grow vastly rich, love to read +how wonderful they are. For their delectation a journalism has grown up +to celebrate the epic of their marvelous industry, resourcefulness, +efficiency, their god-like insight into the hearts of men; whose praises +they pay for liberally in the disposition of advertising. Young men who +would be great read this journalism diligently looking for the secret of +success. Reading it they resolve not to keep their minds upon five +o'clock when the closing whistle blows but to become rich by industry +and thrift like its great exemplars; who profit by it not only in having +their own praises sung but in getting more work out of their servants. + +So much virtue rests upon the business-man illusion that no one would +lay an impious finger on it. I merely analyze it to exhibit the contents +of our minds when we say "elect a business man President," and to +present the picture of a demigod out of the _American Magazine_ in the +White House, and a new synthesis of business and politics. + +Moreover, we let ourselves be misled by the habit of speaking of the +"public business" and accepting without examination the analogy which +the word suggests. We say to ourselves, "Well, since government is a +business, the proper person to be in charge of it is a business man." +But it is not business in any exact sense of the word. If the product of +the operation were a mere bookkeeping profit or even mere bookkeeping +economies then it might properly be called a business. But that which +business efficiency in office, if it could really be obtained, might do +well, is the least part of self-government, whose main end must for a +long time be the steady building up of the democratic ideal. + +But the electing of business men to office does not build up this ideal. +On the contrary it is a confession of failure in democracy, an admission +that public life in it does not develop men fit for its tasks, that for +capacity it is necessary to seek in another world and summon an +outsider; establish a sort of receivership in self-government. + +And it is a blind sort of receivership. We know little about business +men except the noisy disclosures of their press agents. "X" has made a +million dollars. If we no longer say, as in the days of Mark Twain, that +golden words flow from his mouth, we accept his wealth as proof positive +of his extraordinary capacity for affairs. There is no going behind the +fact of his vast accumulation, for business is conducted in secret. The +law recognizes that it has to be, keeping in confidence facts disclosed +through income tax returns. + +When we consider a successful business man for office no allowance can +be made for the fact that the intelligence responsible for his success +may not have been his as head of a successful organization. In no way +may it be asked and answered whether all the original force which was in +him may not have been spent before he is suggested for office. Senator +Knox was an instance of spent force, his energy and ambition being gone +when he entered public life. + +Luck may explain a commercial career and you cannot elect luck to +office. Special talents which are valuable in making money may be out of +place in political life. + +Moreover commercial success in America has been easier than anywhere +else in the world. Opportunities are numerous with the result that +competition has not been keen. Nothing has been so over praised or so +blindly praised as business success in this country. We may occasionally +elect men in public life to office upon false reputations, as we did +Vice-President Coolidge, crediting him with a firmness toward the Boston +police strikers which had been shown by a subordinate in his absence. +But at least the acts of officials are subject to popular scrutiny. +Behind success in business we may not look. + +Take the case of a Middle Western corporation. Three quarters of its +profits came from a subsidiary. The history of the subsidiary is this: +The corporation came into possession of certain mineral lands through +the foreclosure of a mortgage. A company developing a product from the +mineral failed. The head of the corporation acquiring the property by +foreclosure thought this product of little value. A subordinate felt +that it could by a change of name and judicious advertising be widely +sold. He had great difficulty in persuading his employer but in the end +obtained the money to make his experiment, whose results fully justified +his judgment. The public seeking a business man for office would look no +further than at the success of the corporation, which would be proof +sufficient of the great talents of its head. Electing him they would not +obtain for public service the mind which made the money, even if it be +agreed that the talent for making money is a talent for public service. + +And this case: A great Eastern trust acquired possession of a piece of +property in this way: It uses a mineral product not much found in this +country. Some Westerners had a deposit. They went to the Eastern trust, +which encouraged them and loaned them $10,000 for its development. They +then found that the trust was the only market for the mineral and that +it had no intention to buy. Ultimately this deposit passed to the trust +by foreclosure of the $10,000 mortgage. The trust thus obtaining +ownership, began mining and in the first year cleared $500,000 on its +$10,000 investment. The transaction in this instance was not the work of +a subordinate; it revealed, however, a peculiar talent in the head of +the corporation that would not be serviceable in public life. + +To get down to names. Many business men entered the service of the +government during the war. Almost none of them left it with enhanced +reputations. Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, who served in the Treasury +Department, had little success, so the men who surrounded him felt. I am +not able to assess the causes of his failure. Perhaps he had assigned to +him an impossible task. + +Similarly men who had contact with him while financing the Republican +campaign of 1916 were disappointed. After his service at Washington he +ceased to be head of a great Wall Street bank. What do these adverse +circumstances mean regarding Mr. Vanderlip's fitness to be, let us say, +Secretary of the Treasury? Precisely nothing, let us admit. And his +success for a number of years in banking, the large fortune he +accumulated, by the same reasoning, mean no more. + +Mr. Vanderlip is one of our best known business men, yet what the public +knows about him is nothing. He was the president of a great bank and +amassed wealth. An old financial journalist, he has gift of speech and +writing, unusual in the business world. His agreeable personality made +him liked by editors. He achieved unusual publicity. Was his reputation +solidly based or was it newspaper made? The public does not know, cannot +know. I use his case by way of illustration. Perhaps he ought to be +President of the United States. But choosing a man for office on the +basis of his business success, even so well known a man as Mr. +Vanderlip, is plainly enough blind gambling. + +We have in office now one of the great business men of the country. Mr. +Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, who is posed somewhat +uneasily upon what is, many say, the highest pile of wealth any one has +ever heaped up, except Mr. John D. Rockefeller. I say "somewhat +uneasily" because I have in mind Mr. Mellon emerging from a +Congressional hearing at the Capitol, flustered and uncomfortable, +turning to a subordinate and asking anxiously, "Well, did I make a good +impression?" What could a subordinate reply except, "Yes, Mr. Mellon, +you did very well."? + +But Mr. Mellon does not make a good impression on the witness stand. If +he were unjustly accused of a crime he would hang himself by appearing +in his own defense, unless the jury sensed in his stammering hesitancy +not guilt but an honest inability to express himself. + +Mr. Mellon is the shyest and most awkward man who ever rose to power. He +is unhappy before Congressional committees, before reporters in the +dreadful conferences which are the outward and visible evidence of our +democracy, at Cabinet meetings, where the fluent Mr. Hughes casts him +terribly in the shade. + +At one such meeting the President dragged him forth from silence by +turning to him and asking him, "What has the Sphinx here got to say on +the subject." Thus impelled, the Secretary of the Treasury replied, +unconsciously in the words of Sir Roger de Coverley, "Well, Mr. +President, I think there is a good deal to be said on both sides." + +If we may believe the psychologists, the great object of acquiring +wealth and power is the achievement of self-complacency. If it is, Mr. +Mellon has somehow missed it. You can not imagine him writing himself +down beside the others in the great American copy book and saying +seriously to the youth of the land, "Look at me, I worked always fifteen +minutes after the whistle blew and behold the result. Follow my +footsteps." No golden words issue from his mouth. Some unforgetable +personal measure of his own deserts, some standard peculiar to himself, +perhaps, refuses to be buried under the vast accumulations. + +Were ever great abilities so tongue-tied as this? I ask this question +not to answer it. I merely hold Mr. Mellon up as the usually insoluble +riddle, the why of great business success. But granting that the real +Mr. Mellon is shown in the enormous fortune and not in the timid asking +of a subordinate, "Did I make a good impression?" does such shrinking, +such ill adaptation, on the stage of public life make a contribution to +the unending drama of self-government? + +[Illustration: ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY] + +I take it that behind these footlights which we call Washington, just as +behind the literal footlights, the actors, if there is to be any lifting +of us up, must play a part with which we can identify ourselves in our +imagination. He must be articulate. He must get across. Mr. Harding +does it admirably. You watch him and you realize that he is the oldest +of stage heroes, Everyman. You say to yourself unconsciously, "Only the +accident of seven million majority separates him from me." You are +lifted up. Ordinary flesh and blood can do this great thing. + +Based on this desire to identify ourselves with greatness is our +familiar aphorism, "The office makes the man." All that is necessary is +the office to "make" the least of us. + +Roosevelt played the part even better than Mr. Harding, "an ordinary man +raised to the nth power." He strutted to fill the eye. He was the +consummation of articulateness. The point is that self-government must +be dramatic or it does not carry along the self-governors. + +Of course one must not overlook the fact that "the great silent man" is +a consolation to common inarticulateness and ineffectiveness, the +general belief that where there is a slow tongue profundity is found +being one of those pleasant things which we like to think about +ourselves--"we could and we would." But after all there is a sense of +pity about our kind attribution of hidden power to dullness. We are half +aware that we are compensating. + +Anyway, even if the great business man is at home upon the stage, which +Mr. Mellon is not, the calling of him to office interrupts the drama of +self-government. We admit our failure and call in the gods from another +world. It is as I have said a staged receivership. We can not identify +ourselves with the hero. We are poor worms, not millionaires. We might +have the seven million majority but we could not also stand upon a pile +of seven million gold dollars. Government ceases to be human. It becomes +superhuman. And self-government must be human. + +Of course, I exaggerate. Mr. Mellon coming from that other world is not +wholly without his human relations. I have alluded to his symbolizing +the wish-fulfilment of the inarticulate, and the inarticulate are many. +He does more. He fits admirably into what Mr. Walter Lippmann has called +in his new book one of our popular stereotypes. We demand a conflict +between reality and the stage. We like to see the masks pulled off our +actors. One of our best received traditions is that a man who has a +fight with the politicians has performed a great service. We like to see +our strutters strut in a little fear of us. + +But Secretary Mellon's defeat of Representative Fordney, Senator Elkins, +and Elmer Dover in their efforts to fill his department with politicians +was not so much a sign of power as a measure of the difference between +Mr. Mellon's world and theirs. + +Mr. Mellon comes into the Treasury from his bank. All he knows is +banking, not politics. If he went from the Mellon Bank to the National +City Bank of New York he would not discharge all the National City Bank +employees and bring in a lot of men who had never seen the inside of a +bank before, whom he did not know, who didn't speak the same language +that he did. It is only in politics that one finds such perfect faith in +man as man. + +He goes to one young Democrat in the Department--this actually +happened--and he says, "Young man, I like your work. I want you to stay +with me," "Ah, but, Mr. Mellon, I can't," plead this Democrat, "You +really can't do things that way. It is not done. You will have all the +Republican politicians about your ears." + +But it was not a sense of power in Mr. Mellon that made him thus defy +the conventions. It was merely the instinct of self-protection. He could +not live in the atmosphere of politics. He had to do things as he always +had done them. The Gods coming down from high Olympus among the sons and +daughters of men were probably never as much at ease as the Greeks made +them out to be. + +With his millions behind him Mr. Mellon was a solid object in his +conflict with the politicians. Without them one does not know what would +have happened between him and Mr. Fordney, Mr. Elkins, and Mr. Dover. + +What is a good Secretary of the Treasury? We have a stereotype about +that, too, one slowly and painfully formed. A good Secretary of the +Treasury is one who has seen the inside of a bank, who has read the +books on finance and knows the rules. Originally our Secretaries of the +Treasury were amateurs, like our generals who beat ploughshares into +swords. When one got into trouble, he boarded the Congressional Limited +for New York and saw Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan came out of his bank holding +the safety of the nation in his hands, exhibiting it to reporters who +wrote all about it, assuring the public. + +At length it was decided to keep the safety of the nation at Washington. +And our Secretaries of the Treasury tended to become professional. The +young men who tell us whether we have a good Secretary of the Treasury +or not are the financial writers of the newspapers. The Secretary acts. +The young men look in the books and see that he has conformed to the +rules. When he has he leaves nothing to be desired as Secretary. + +Mr. Mellon's relation to Alexander Hamilton is the same as Marshal +Foch's relation to Napoleon; one knew war from his own head, the other +knows it from the teachers. Mr. Mellon's administration is not inspired. +In the greatest financial crisis in our history he has no constructive +suggestion to make. You would hardly know that Secretary Houston was +gone and Mr. Mellon had come. And there is an explanation for this +continuity, beside that of the rule books. The hard work of the +Department has been done under both administrations by Assistant +Secretary S. P. Gilbert, for Mr. Mellon has the successful man's habit +of leaning heavily upon an able and industrious subordinate. Mr. Gilbert +is an ambitious young lawyer who has mastered the books and who works 18 +hours a day. The voice is the voice of Mellon but the hand is the hand +of Gilbert. + +I have analyzed Mr. Mellon at Washington although only a small fraction +of his career is involved and although he operates in the difficult +circumstances of an unknown and unfavorable environment. But he is +perceptible in Washington, he does appear before Congressional +Committees and at newspaper conferences. You can study the Gilberts who +surround him. You can estimate the prepossessions that enter into our +judgment of him. You can measure him against the standard of public +life. + +In Pittsburg he is more remote. He is hedged about with the secrecy of +business. He is to be seen only through the golden aura of a great +fortune, sitting shy and awkward upon an eminence, the product of forces +and personalities which can only be guessed at. + +He was the son of a banker and inherited a considerable fortune. He +operated in a city which expanded fabulously in the course of his +lifetime. If he is shy and unbusiness-worldly, he has a brother who has +that force of personality which we usually associate with fitness for +life. His bank was the chosen instrument of Henry C. Frick, one of the +pioneer demigods, who could make the business reputations of men who +proved adaptable to his uses. + +Thus into the result there enters the power of Frick, the thrust upward +of Pittsburg, an industrial volcano, the associated personality of the +other Mellon. You have to give a name to all this combination of +favoring circumstances and favoring personalities and names are usually +given arbitrarily. The name given in this case is Andrew W. Mellon. But +how much of it is Andrew W. Mellon and how much of it is Pittsburg, how +much of it Frick, how much of it brother Mellon, an electorate seeking a +business man for office can not stop to inquire and can not learn if it +does inquire. + +If the people elect a man like Mr. Mellon to office they do not enlist +in the public service the combination of persons and forces which is +known by his name. Or if he is all that he seems to be, measured by his +great fortune, perhaps they get him after he has spent his force or +after his head is turned by success, or at any rate they put him into an +unfamiliar milieu and subject him to that corrupting temptation, the +desire for a second term or for a higher office. + +And to go back to what I have said before, they make self-government go +into bankruptcy and ask for a receiver. + +The great business-man President is just a romantic development of the +great business-man illusion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE BOTTLE + + +Mr. Mellon's associates in the Cabinet were most of them chosen on +substantially the same principles as he was, namely, that success in +business or professional life implies fitness for public life. We have +no other standard. The present Cabinet is an "exceptionally good" +Cabinet. Many of its members are millionaires. + +Some of them owe their place to the rule that those who help elect a +President are entitled to the honor, the advertising, or the +"vindication," of high public office. + +That is to say, the same considerations that rule in the selection of +Senators rule in their selection. They were recruited from the class +from which Senators are recruited. I can not say the mental level of the +Cabinet is above that of the Senate. Take out of the upper house its two +strongest members, its two weakest, and half a dozen of the average +sort, and you construct a body in every way equal to the Cabinet of Mr. +Harding in intelligence and public morals. + +Most of them, never having been members of the upper house, have not +suffered from the depreciation in the public eye which attends service +in the legislative branch. They come rather from the wonderful business +world. + +There are, moreover, few of them compared to Senators. Smallness of +numbers suggests careful selection, superior qualifications. + +And the secrecy of Cabinet meetings makes them impressive. If reporters +were present, the public would realize that the Cabinet as a Cabinet was +mostly occupied with little things. + +The records prove it. + +The biweekly meetings of the Cabinet are commonly followed by the +announcement: "The Cabinet had a short session today. Nothing of +importance was discussed"; or, "Details of administration were +discussed." Now, of course, reasons of state may occasionally restrain +the disclosure of what actually was the subject before the Cabinet. Yet +Mr. Harding's administration has been in office more than a year, and +how many important policies has it adopted? How much wisdom has emerged +from the biweekly meetings? + +Sample announcements of the Cabinet meetings run like this: "The Cabinet +listened to the Postmaster General, explaining how much it would +facilitate the handling of the mails if people would distribute the +mailing of their letters throughout the day, instead of keeping most of +them to mail late in the afternoon when they are leaving their offices. +The Postmaster General pointed out that the government departments were +offenders in this respect." Useful; but why should the whole nation worry +about who advises with the President over the inveterate bad habits of +the people as letter writers? + +Or this: "The Cabinet spent an hour and a half today discussing what to +do with the property left in the government's hands by the war. There +are millions of dollars' worth of such property." A mere detail of +administration, but it came before the Cabinet as a whole because more +than one department was left in control of the property. + +Moreover, you may estimate the importance of cabinets from the fact +that, after all, every administration takes its color from the +President. Mr. Wilson's administration was precisely Mr. Wilson. Mr. +Harding's is precisely Mr. Harding. + +Listen to the experience of a Cabinet adviser. One of the most important +Secretaries was explaining to some friends a critical situation. "But," +interjected one of the listeners, "does President Harding understand +that?" "The President," replied the Secretary, "never has time really to +understand anything." + +And remember how Secretary Hughes told the President that the Four Power +Pact covered with its guarantees the home islands of Japan, and how a +couple of days later Mr. Harding informed the press that it did not +cover the home islands of Japan; when it transpired that the information +of Mr. Hughes on this point had effected no lodgement in the President's +mind. + +The Presidential mind; that is the bottle neck through which everything +has to pass. + +Suppose we had today the greatest statesman that this country has ever +produced as Secretary of State. Let us say Alexander Hamilton, for +example. What could Alexander Hamilton do as the head of Mr. Harding's +Cabinet? We shall assume that Alexander Hamilton had the mind to grasp +the problem of this country's relations to the world and of its interest +in the world's recovery from the havoc and the hatreds of the war, and +the constructive imagination to reach a solution of it. What could +Alexander Hamilton do? His avenue of approach to world problems would be +Mr. Harding. All that was in the mind of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary +of State, would have to pass through the mind of Warren G. Harding, +President, before it would become effective. + +The passage through would be blocked by many obstacles, for Mr. Harding +has a perfectly conventional mind; that is why he is President. One of +the pictures in Mr. Harding's head is the mechanistic, the God's Time +picture. "Things left to themselves will somehow come out all right." +Another is the racial inferiority complex. "Man is inadequate to attempt +control of his own destiny. There are the forces to be considered." A +third is the great business-man illusion. Mr. Morgan going abroad to +consider reparations may accomplish the wonders which mere statesmen can +not. All these induce avoidance of responsibility, and Mr. Harding has +the human liking for avoiding responsibility. Pressed by Mr. Hamilton, +Mr. Harding would say: "But I can not move the Senate." Pressed further, +he would say: "There is Public Opinion. We shall lose the election if we +become involved in European affairs. You and I know those Allied war +debts are worthless, but how can we make the people realize that they +are worthless?" + +Like the rest of us, Mr. Harding perhaps has none of these pictures so +firmly in his head as before the war; but the damage to the pictures +only makes him more vacillating. I am assuming in all this that Mr. +Hamilton has a free mind, which he had, relatively, when he operated a +century and a half ago. At that time he had not to think much of Public +Opinion or of parties. And the mechanistic theory of Progress, that +things come out all right with the least possible human intervention or +only the intervention of the business man, had not then assumed its +present importance. + +"Mind," says a nameless writer in the _London Nation_, "is incorrigibly +creative." It has created so many vast illusions like those above in +the last century and a half that like the American spirit in Kipling's +poem: + + "Elbowed out by sloven friends, + It camps, at sufferance, on the stoop." + +Where our actual Secretary's mind falls short of our supposititious +Secretary's mind is in the valuable quality of common sense. I am even +prepared to maintain that as a measure of reality Mr. Hughes's mind is +distinctly inferior to Mr. Harding's, which is one reason why he never +did become President and Mr. Harding did. I can not better explain what +I mean than on the basis of this quotation from a recent book of Mr. +Orage, the British critic: + +"Common sense is the community of the senses or faculties; in its +outcome it is the agreement of their reports. A thing is said to be +common sense when it satisfies the heart, the mind, the emotion and all +the senses; when, in fact, it satisfies all our various criteria of +reality." + +Mr. Hughes has only one criterion of reality, his mind, which has been +developed at the expense of all his other means of approach to the +truth. He lives in a region of facts, principles, and logical +deductions. He does not sense anything. And only men who sense reality +have common sense. For Mr. Hughes facts are solid; you can make two +nice, orderly little piles of them and build a logical bridge over the +interval between them. A true statesman builds a bridge resting on +nothing palpable, and nevertheless he crosses over it. + +Mr. Hughes's mind operates in a region of perfect demonstration; he even +demonstrates things to himself. A true statesman never succeeds in +demonstrating anything to himself; he uses demonstration only in dealing +with others. Yet he arrives in other than logical ways at a sureness for +himself which is never Mr. Hughes's. For the Secretary of State +statesmanship is an intellectual exercise, for the true statesman it is +the exercise of a dozen other faculties. An extraordinary but limited +mind, Mr. Hughes impresses us as the boy lightning calculator does, and +leaves us unsatisfied. + +Take Mr. Hughes's handling of Mexican relations as an example of what I +have called statesmanship made a purely intellectual exercise. The +practical result which was to be desired when Mr. Hughes took office was +stability and order in Mexico, the safety of American property there, +and a restoration of diplomatic intercourse. + +Mr. Hughes does not seek to obtain these results. Instead he works out +the following problem: _a_ + _b_ = _c_, in which _a_ is the fact that +Carranza had issued a decree making possible the confiscation of +American property in Mexico, _b_ is the principle of international law +that at the basis of relations between peoples must be safety of alien +property, and _c_ is a note to Mexico. + +Mr. Hughes was excited over the perfection of this intellectual +operation. He read his note with all the jubilance of the Greek +philosopher who, having discovered an important principle of physics, +exclaimed: "Eureka." Mr. Hughes's Eureka is always a piece of paper. He +is a lawyer whose triumphs are briefs and contracts. + +Now the facts were not merely that Carranza had made an offensive +gesture, issuing the famous decree; but that Mexico had not confiscated +American property and lived in such fear of her strong neighbor that she +was never likely to do so, that the Mexican supreme court had ruled +confiscation to be illegal, that the Obregon government was as stable +and as good a government as Mexico was likely to have, and that it was +to our interest to support it morally rather than encourage further +revolution there. They all pointed to recognition. + +The validity of the piece of paper that Mr. Hughes demanded of Obregon +would rest upon international law. But so did the validity of our right +to have our property in Mexico respected. We should not be in any +stronger legal position to intervene in Mexico if she violated the +contract Mr. Hughes wanted, than if she violated our property rights +there unfortified by such a piece of paper. Both rested on one and the +same law. + +Furthermore, Mexico being weak and sensitive, an arbitrary demand that +she "take the pledge," such as Mr. Hughes made, was sure to offend her +pride, and delay the consummation everyone wished--stability across the +border and a restoration of good relations. Yet Mr. Hughes was immensely +satisfied with his intellectual exercise _a_ + _b_ = _c_, _c_ being not +a solution of the Mexican problem, which at this writing is still afar +off, but a piece of paper, a note to Mexico. The sheer logical triumph +of the deduction of _c_ from _a_ and _b_ is to Mr. Hughes an end in +itself. + +Now, of course, it is not wholly overdevelopment of mind at the expense +of the other criteria of reality which leads Mr. Hughes to vain +exercises like _a_ + _b_ = _c_. He has what a recent writer has +described as "an inflamed legal sense." He has, moreover, by an +association of ideas all his own oddly transferred to law that +sacredness with which he was brought up to regard the Bible. "Sanctity +of contracts," is his favorite phrase, the word "sanctity" being highly +significant. He has, besides, Mr. Harding over him, and the Senate to +reckon with. And in the case of Mexico he has as a fellow Cabinet +member, Mr. Fall, the picture in whose head is of a "white man" teaching +a "greaser" to respect him. He has to think of winning elections, of his +own political ambitions. All these inhibitory influences which generally +produce negation do not estop Mr. Hughes. His mind is too vigorous for +that. It pursues its way energetically to results, such as _a_ + _b_ = +_c_. + +Now, of course, the handling of Mexican relations is not Mr. Hughes's +major achievement. But even his major achievement, the Washington +conference with its resultant nine pieces of paper, was more or less a +lawyer's plea in avoidance. + +The major problem which confronted Mr. Hughes was this: The Great War +had been followed, as Mr. H. G. Wells aptly says, by the Petty Peace. It +was threatening, and still threatens, to flame up again. The problem of +a real peace confronted Mr. Hughes, because Mr. Wilson had sought to +establish one and failed, and had thus set a certain standard of effort +for his successor. Moreover, Mr. Hughes had said that every man, woman, +and child in the United States was vitally interested in the economic +recovery of Europe. + +Mr. Hughes had either to face this task or divert the mind of the court +to some other issue. He chose to find his _a_ + _b_ = _c_ elsewhere. The +problem of establishing peace where there was war was difficult; perhaps +it was too hard for any man, but has not humanity--I say humanity +because it is Mr. Harding's favorite word--has not humanity the right to +ask of its statesmen something more than timidity and avoidance? The +problem of establishing peace where there was peace, in the Orient, was +relatively easy. + +The war had left the great sea powers with excessive navies and +insupportable naval budgets. All wanted naval limitation. It was only +necessary to propose an agreement for reduction to have it accepted. + +Even the dramatic method of making the proposal, with details of the +tonnage to be scrapped, was not Mr. Hughes's idea. Let us do the man in +the White House justice. He conceived it on the _Mayflower_; read it to +Senator James Watson who was with him, and wirelessed it to the State +Department. + +There was the further problem, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Mr. Hughes +wanted it ended. Japan and England wanted it substituted by a compact +which should be signed by its two signatories and the United States. + +All that Mr. Hughes had to do to establish peace where there was peace +was to offer an agreement upon naval armament and accept the +Anglo-Japanese plan for a wider pact in the Pacific. The details would +involve discussion, but the success of the general program was assured +in advance. + +The conference was called, hurriedly, because, as Mr. Harding once +explained, if he had not hastened someone else would have anticipated +him in calling it. This shows how obvious was the expedient. The idea of +naval limitation was no more original than the idea of the conference. +Mr. Borah had proposed it. Lord Lee had proposed it, in the British +Parliament. The idea of the Four Power Pact was made in England--it had +long been discussed there--and brought over by Mr., now Lord, Balfour. +He laid it at Mr. Hughes's feet. + +Mr. Balfour sought no triumphs. They should all go to Mr. Hughes. He has +the art of inconspicuousness, the result of many generations of fine +breeding. As you saw him in the plenary sessions clutching the lapels of +his coat with both hands and modestly struggling for utterance after an +immense flow of words from our chief delegate, you could not help +feeling patriotic pride in the contrast. + +Besides, Mr. Balfour was captivated. He became, for the nonce, perfectly +American. Mr. H. Wickham Steed said to me, hearing the chief British +delegate speak: "It is a new Balfour at this conference." Certainly as +you heard the voice, moved and moving, emotional perhaps for the first +time in his life, you realized that it was not Mr. Balfour, "proceeding +on his faded way" as the _London Nation_ expressed it, who was speaking. +It was Mr. Balfour as he might be at a great revival meeting, such as +Mr. Hughes in his youth must have often attended. + +On the Four Power Pact the best comment ever made was Mr. Frank +Simonds's, "It was invented to save the British Empire from committing +bigamy." + +[Illustration: ARTHUR BALFOUR] + +The results of the Washington conference were substantial. They put off +war where none was threatening. Perhaps in the longer future they +will be seen to be no more than a prolongation of the intent of the +Versailles treaty, confirming the dichotomy of powers which that +instrument created. Germany, Russia, and China were treated as outsiders +in both conferences. + +But the great _a_ + _b_ = _c_ of last winter left peace where there is +war still unwritten. The problem which "humanity" posed to Mr. Hughes is +as yet unattempted. It is as exigent as ever. Immensely plausible as he +is, events have a way of overtaking him. Remembering what happened on +election night in 1916, I think one cannot sum him up better than by +saying that he has the habit of always being elected in the early +returns. As in the case of the lightning calculator, after you have +recovered from your first surprise at his mental exhibition you are +inclined to ask, "But what is the good of it all?" + +The two most important advisers to the President in the existing Cabinet +are Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hoover. The limitations of the Secretary of State +are the limitations of a legalistic mind. The limitations of Mr. Hoover +are the limitations of a scientific mind. Men, considered politically, +do not behave like mathematical factors nor like chemical elements. + +Someone asked Mr. Hoover recently why he sent corn to Russia instead of +wheat. "Because," replied the Secretary of Commerce without a moment's +hesitation, "for one dollar I can buy so many calories"--carrying it +out to the third decimal place--"in corn, and only so many"--again to +the third decimal place--"in wheat. I get about twice as many in corn as +in wheat." + +Mr. Hoover is at his best in feeding a famished population. He then has +men where he wants them--I say this without meaning to reflect upon Mr. +Hoover's humanitarian impulses; perhaps I should better say he then has +men where for the free operation of his scientific mind he requires to +have them. For in a famine men become mere chemical retorts. You pour +into them a certain number of calories. Oxidization produces a certain +energy. And the exact energy necessary to sustain life is calculable. + +In a famine men cease to be individuals. They can not say, "I never ate +corn. I do not know how to cook corn. I do not like corn." They behave +in perfectly calculable ways. So many calories, oxidization; so much +energy. + +Conceive a society in which results were always calculable: so many men, +so much fuel, so much consequent horsepower, and Mr. Hoover would make +for it an admirable benevolent dictator; for he is benevolent. If +Bolshevism at its most complete exemplification had been a success and +become the order of the world, Mr. Hoover might have made a great head +of a state; with labor conscripted and food conscripted, all you would +have to do would be to apply the food, counted in calories, to the +labor, and production in a readily estimable quantity would ensue. I am +not trying to suggest that this represents Mr. Hoover's ideal of +society; it surely does not. I am only saying that this is the kind of +society in which Mr. Hoover would develop his fullest utility. + +Science inevitably reduces man to the calculable automaton, otherwise it +can deduce no laws about him;--such as, for example, the legal man, a +fiction that haunts Mr. Hughes's brain; the chemical retort man, of Mr. +Hoover's mind; the economic man, another convenient fiction; the +scientific socialism man, another pure fiction, derived from the +economic man and forming the basis for Bolshevism at its fullest +development. + +Now if Chemistry should somehow acquire eccentricity, so that two +elements combined in a retort would sometimes produce one result and +sometimes another totally different, the chemist would be no more unsure +in his mind than is Mr. Hoover, operating for the first time in a +society of free, self-governing men. Or perhaps it would be a better +analogy to say that if the chemist when he put an agent into a retort +could not be sure what other elements were already in it, and could not +tell whether the result would be an explosion or a pleasant and useful +recombination, he would be somewhat in the position of Mr. Hoover. + +You will observe that I am trying to dissociate the real Hoover from the +myth Hoover, always a difficult process, which may require years for +its accomplishment. I do not pretend that this is the final +dissociation. All we know with certainty of the real Hoover is that when +he has society at the starvation line and can say "so many calories, so +much energy," he works with extraordinary sureness. + +When he operates in a normal society he takes his chemical agent in hand +and consults Mr. Harding, Mr. Daugherty, or Mr. Weeks as to what agents +there are in the political retort, and whether the placing of his agent +in with them will produce an explosion or a profitable recombination. + +So you see the practical utility of his mind is conditioned upon the +minds of Mr. Harding, Mr. Weeks, and Mr. Daugherty. It is a fertile +mind, which invents, however, only minor chemical reactions, neither he +nor Mr. Harding being sure enough about the dirty and incalculable +vessel of politics to know when an explosion may result, and neither of +them being bold enough to take chances. + +Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hoover, and Mr. Daugherty are the only outstanding +figures in the Cabinet. The Attorney General lives in an unreal world of +his own, which at the moment of this writing threatens to come tumbling +down about his head. + +The clue to Mr. Daugherty's world is found in a sentence of Thomas +Felder's letter apropos of the failure to collect the $25,000 fee for +securing the release of Charles W. Morse from prison, in which he tells +how he associated with himself Mr. Daugherty, "who stood as close to the +President as any other lawyer or citizen of the United States." +"Standing close," men may laugh at the gods, may "take the cash and let +the credit go." It is a world of little things without any tomorrow. +Long views and large views do not matter. Forces? Principles? Perhaps, +but the main thing is all men should "stand close." It is an immensely +human world, where men if they are not masters of their own destiny may +at least cheat fate for a little brief hour, if only they remain true to +each other no matter what befalls. + +Mr. Harding, one side of him belongs to that world of Mr. Daugherty's, +while another side belongs to that larger political world where morals, +wrapped in vague sentimental words, hold sway. It is because he belongs +to that world that Mr. Daugherty is Attorney General. Mr. Daugherty +"stood close" to Mr. Harding all his life. "Standing close" creates an +obligation. Mr. Harding, as President, must in return "stand close" to +Mr. Daugherty. + +He does so. To the caller who visited him when the Morse-Felder letters +were coming out daily, and who was apprehensive of the consequences, the +President said, "You don't know Harry Daugherty. He is as clean and +honorable a man as there is in this country." In such a world as this, +your friend can do no wrong. Goldstein, who received the $2,500 from +Lowden's campaign manager, belongs to it. Therefore, he can do no wrong. +Therefore, his name goes from the White House to the Senate for +confirmation as Collector of Internal Revenue at St. Louis. + +To go back to the time before he became Attorney General, Daugherty +practiced law in Columbus, Ohio. His cases came to him, largely as the +Morse retainer did, because he "stood close" to somebody, to the +President, to Senators, to Governors of Ohio, or Legislatures of Ohio. +His was not a highly lucrative practice, for Mr. Daugherty is one of the +few relatively poor men in the present Cabinet. You may deduce from this +circumstance a conclusion as favorable as that which the President, who +knows him so well, does. I am concerned only in presenting the facts. At +least Mr. Daugherty did not grow rich out of "standing close." + +Nor did he accumulate a reputation. When men "stand close" those who are +outside the circle invariably regard them with a certain suspicion. Your +professional politician, for that is what Daugherty was, always is an +object of doubt. And for this reason he always seeks what is technically +known as a "vindication." Conscious of his own rectitude, as he measures +it, he may come out of office cleared in the world's eyes, and with a +fine title, to boot, ready for life upon a new level. And this +"vindication" sometimes does take place. + +I have no doubt that Mr. Daugherty entered office with the most +excellent intentions. He had everything to gain personally from "making +a record" in the Attorney Generalship, a title and a higher standing at +the bar. Moreover, he was the loyal friend of the President and desired +the success of the administration. + +But it is not so easy. You cannot one moment by "standing close" laugh +at the gods and the next range yourself easily and commodiously on the +side of the gods. The gods may be unkind even to those who mean to be +with them from the outset, establishing their feet firmly upon logic or +upon calories; how much more so may they be with those who would +suddenly change sides? + +At least it is a matter that admits of no compromise. What is he going +to do in office with those who "stood close" to him as he "stood close" +to President Taft? All the "close standers" turn up in Washington. For +example, Mr. Felder, who "stood close" in the Morse case and who perhaps +for that reason appears as counsel in the Bosch-Magneto case, where the +prosecution moves slowly, and who moreover permits himself some +indiscretions. There is a whole army of "close standers." There are the +prosecutions that move slowly. Neither circumstance is necessarily +significant. There are always the "close standers." Prosecutions always +move slowly. But the two circumstances together! + +I present all this merely to show what kind of adviser the Attorney +General is, his limited conception of life on this little world, and +life's, perhaps temporary, revenge upon him. No one at this writing can +pass judgment, so I give, along with the facts and the appearances, the +best testimonial that a man can have, that quoted above from the +President. + +In physique the Attorney General is burly, thick-necked, his eyes are +unsteady, his face alternately jovial and minatory,--I should say he +bluffed effectively,--rough in personality, a physical law requiring +that bodies easily cemented together, and thus "standing close," should +not have too smooth an exterior. His view of the world being highly +personal, his instinctive idea of office is that it, too, is personal, +something to be used, always within the law, to aid friends and punish +enemies. He wrote once to a newspaper, which was opposing his +appointment, in substance that he would be Attorney General in spite of +it and that he had a long memory. + +Secretary of War Weeks is the only other general adviser of Mr. Harding +in the Cabinet. He is politically minded. Like Mr. Harding he is half of +the persuasion of Mr. Daugherty about organization, and half of the +other persuasion about the sway of moral forces. All in all he is +nearer akin mentally to the President than any other member of the +Cabinet, but with more industry and more capacity for details than his +chief. He is of the clean desk tradition; Mr. Harding is not. + +[Illustration: ATTORNEY-GENERAL H. M. DAUGHERTY] + +Half politician and half business man, he interprets business to the +politician, and politics to business. He is a middle grounder. He quit +banking satisfied with a moderate fortune, saying, "The easiest thing I +ever did was to make money." + +His bland voice and mild manner indicate the same moderation in +everything that he showed in making money; his narrowing eyes, the +caution which led him to quit banking when he went into politics. + +Politics intrigues him, but he has not a first-class mind for it, as his +experiences in Massachusetts proved. + +Frank to the utmost limits his caution will permit, people like him, but +not passionately. Men respect his ability, but they do not feel strongly +about it. He never becomes the center of controversy, as Daugherty is, +as Hoover has been, and as Hughes may at any time be. I have never seen +him angry, I have seen him enthusiastic. A Laodicean in short. + +Secretary Fall hoped to be one of the chief advisers, but has been +disappointed. Mr. Harding had said of him, "His is the best mind in the +Senate," but he has found other minds more to his liking in the Cabinet. + +With a long drooping mustache, he looks like a stage sheriff of the Far +West in the movies. His voice is always loud and angry. He has the +frontiers-man's impatience. From his kind lynch law springs. + +He wanted to lynch Mexico. When he entered the Cabinet he said to his +Senate friends, "If they don't follow me on Mexico I shall resign." He +has been a negative rather than a positive force there regarding Mexico, +deviating Mr. Hughes into the ineffective position he occupies. + +He has the frontiers-man's impatience of conservation. Probably he is +right. His biggest contribution to his country's welfare will be oil +land leases, like that of Teapot Dome. + +The Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Wallace, is an excellent technical +adviser, as unobtrusive as experts usually are. + +The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Denby, with his flabby jowls and large +shapeless mouth, has a big heart, and more enthusiasm than he has +self-command, judgment, or intelligence. He committed political suicide +cheerfully, when the Cannon machine in the House fell into disfavor. He +would do anything for a friend, not as Mr. Daugherty would because it +pays, but because he is a friend. A cause commands an equal loyalty from +him. Just because his head is not as big as his heart he is a minor +factor. + +Mr. Davis, Secretary of Labor, is a professional glad hand man, +appointed because the administration meant to extend nothing to Labor +but a glad hand. When a crisis presents itself in industrial relations, +Mr. Hoover, who spreads himself over several departments, attends to it. +At the conference on unemployment, which was Mr. Hoover's, the best and +only example of the unemployed present was the Secretary of Labor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR OF MUCH LITTLENESS + + +We have a form of government suited to effect the will of a simple +primitive people, a people with one clear aim. When we are all of one +mind the government works. The executive represents the general +intention, Congress represents the same intention. The party in power +owes its position to the thoroughness with which it expresses the common +purpose. Or, if you go back further, the structure of business serves +the same social aim. + +Now, under such circumstances, it makes little difference where +authority resides, whether there is government by business, or +government by parties, or executive domination, or whether Congress is +the ruling branch. The result is the same, the single purpose of the +community finds its just expression. + +And so it was in the blessed nineties to which Mr. Harding would have us +return. The people were united upon one end, the rapid appropriation of +the virgin wealth of this continent and its distribution among the +public, and they had no doubt this was being admirably accomplished by +the existing business structure. Parties and governments were +subsidiary. The system worked. + +In a pioneer society waste is unimportant; it may even be economy. +Forests are cut and all but the choicest wood thrown away. They are not +replanted. While they are so plentiful it would be a waste of time and +effort to use the poor timber or to replace the felled trees. + +In a similar society faulty distribution, which is ordinarily a social +waste, is unimportant. There is plenty for all. And it may even be a +waste of time and effort, checking accomplishment, to seek better +adjustments. The object of society is the rapid exploitation of the +resources nature has made available. Everyone gains in the process. +Justice is a detail, as much a detail as is the inferior timber left to +rot. + +We no longer have the unity of aim of a pioneer society, yet we have not +readjusted our actual government in conformity with the altered social +consciousness. Instead we are trying to readjust ourselves to a practice +that is outworn. Having ceased to be pioneers, becoming various and +healthily divided, instead of making our system express the new variety +in our life, and still function, we are trying to force ourselves by +heavy penalties and awful bugaboos back into that unity under which our +system does work. + +And when I say that we have a form of government suited only to a +pioneer society, though we have ceased to be a pioneer society, let no +one think that I would lay a profane hand upon that venerated +instrument, the Constitution of the United States. I am thinking only of +the Constitution's boasted elasticity. A new stretching is required, to +fit a larger and more diversified society than that to which we have +hitherto applied it. + +For a simple, primitive people, for a pioneer society with but one task +to accomplish,--the appropriation and distribution of the undeveloped +resources of a continent,--details of distribution being unimportant +where natural wealth was so vast, government by business or government +by parties as the agents of business served admirably. The essential +unity which is not to be found in our government of divided powers +existed in the single engrossing aim of the public. + +For a temporary end, like the common defense, against an external enemy +or against an imagined internal enemy, concentration upon the Executive +also serves. The unity of purpose which the nation has is imported into +the government through elevating the President into a dominant position. +In the one case the government is made to work by putting all branches +of it under control of one authority outside itself; in the other, by +upsetting the nice balance which the Fathers of the Constitution set up +and, under the fiction of party authority, resorting to one man +Government. + +But what happens when there ceases to be a single aim, when the fruits +of the earth are no longer sufficient to go around generously so that no +one need question his share, when a conflict of interests arises, when +classes begin to emerge, when in short we have the situation which +exists in America today? + +Let us examine for a moment the Executive as a source of unity in the +government of such a divergent society. To make him executive minorities +must agree upon him. He must, to use Mr. Harding as an illustration, be +satisfactory to the farmers with one point of view and to Wall Street +with another, he must be acceptable to the Irish Americans and to the +German Americans and to several other varieties of Americans, he must +take the fence between those who believe in a League of Nations and +those who hate a League of Nations, he must please capital and at the +same time not alienate labor. + +Mr. Harding gave a glimpse of his difficulties when he said during the +campaign, "I could make better speeches than these, but I have to be so +careful." The greatest common divisor of all the minorities that go to +making a winning national combination must be neutral, he must be +colorless, he must not know that his soul is his own. The greatest +common divisor of all the elements in the nation's political +consciousness today is inevitably a Mr. Harding. We shall probably have +a whole series of Mr. Hardings in the White House. + +And when this greatest common divisor of all the classes and all the +interests, this neutral, colorless person to whom no one can find any +objection, enters the White House does he represent Labor? So little +that he will not have a labor man in his Cabinet. Does he represent +Capital? By instinct, by party training, by preference, yes, but capital +is so divided that it is hard to represent, and the President, like the +candidate, "has to be so careful." Does he represent the farmers? He +says so, but the farmers choose to be represented elsewhere, on the +hill, where they can find agents whose allegiance is not so divided. + +And carefulness does not end upon election. Once a candidate always a +candidate. The entire first term of a president is his second candidacy. +His second term, if he wins one, is the candidacy of his successor, in +whose election he is vitally interested; for the continuance of his +party in power is the measure of public approval of himself. A president +who is the greatest common divisor of groups and interests "must always +be so careful" that he can never be a Roosevelt or a Wilson. + +Recapitulating the experiences of other peoples with political +institutions, we have quickly, since our discovery of one man rule, run +upon the period of little kings. The Carolingians have followed close +upon the heels of the great Carl. The institution which in the first +decade of the twentieth century was a wonderful example of our capacity +to adopt the rigors of a written constitution to our ends, of the +practical genius of the American people, in the third decade of the +twentieth century is already dead. + +The monarch with power, not the mere survival who satisfies the instinct +for the picturesque, for the play of the emotions in politics, is suited +to an undifferentiated people pursuing a single simple end; one end, one +man, many ends, many men is the rule. The greatest common divisor of +such masses of men as inhabit this continent, so variously sprung, so +variously seeking their place in the sun, is something that has to be so +careful as to become a nullity. + +There is no reason why our presidents should not become like all single +heads of modern civilized peoples, largely ornamental, largely links +with the past, symbols to stir our inherited feelings as we watch their +gracious progress through the movies. Mr. Harding is headed that way and +if that Providence which watches over American destinies vouchsafes him +to us for eight years instead of only four, the Presidency under him +will make progress toward a place alongside monarchy under King George. + +Already, in the habit of blaming every failure and disappointment upon +Congress, we see signs of the growth of the happy belief that the King +can do no wrong. When the King does nothing he can do no wrong. + +There is no reason why we should not repeat the experiences of peoples +who have gone further upon the road of social differentiation than we +have and develop like them parliamentary government. By this I do not +mean to echo the nonsense that has been written about having the Cabinet +officers sit in Congress. + +What is more likely to come is a new shift in the balance, a new +manifestation of our genius for the practical, which no written +constitution can restrain, which will place the initiative in the +legislative branch, whereas I have said, under Mr. Harding it is already +passing, and which will make Congress rather than the President the +dominant factor in our political life. + +This process is already taking place. + +When President Harding asked the advice of the Senate whether he should +revive an old treaty with Germany suspended by the war, pointing proudly +to the tenderness he was showing the partner of his political joys, he +conceded an authority in the legislative branch which neither the +Constitution nor our traditions had placed there. He took a step toward +recognizing the prospective dominance of Congress. It was one of many. + +It is a long distance, as political institutions are measured, from +President Wilson's telling the Senate that it must bow to his will even +in dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the Versailles Treaty, to +Mr. Harding's asking the Senate what was its will regarding the old +German treaty. Foreign relations are precisely the field where the +executive power seems by the Constitution to have been most clearly +established, yet it is just here that the legislative branch has made +its most remarkable advance toward a dominating position; perhaps +because this topic gained a temporary importance from the war and it was +naturally in the most significant area that the conflict between the two +branches of the government had to break out. + +When President Harding introduced the treaties and pacts resulting from +the Washington Conference into the Senate, he said that he had been a +Senator and knew the Senate views, and that all the agreements he was +offering for ratification had been negotiated with scrupulous regard to +the Senate's will. And he pleaded with the Senate not to disavow the +Executive and impair its standing in the conduct of foreign relations. + +No more complete avowal could be made of the dominant position which the +Senate has come to occupy in the diplomatic affairs of the country. + +In the field where he was supposed legally to have the initiative the +President became expressly the agent of the Senate. The Senate laid out +the limits of policy and the Executive scrupulously, so he said, +observed those limits. + +This speech of Mr. Harding's, like his consulting the Senate in advance +upon the reviving of the German treaty, is one of the significant +evidences of the shift of power that is taking place, away from the +Executive toward the Legislative. It did not attract the attention it +deserved because our minds are still full of the past when the +Presidency was a great office under Wilson and Roosevelt. We read of Mr. +Harding's going to the hill to tell Congress what it must do, and we +ignore the fact that he always does so when Congress sends for him, +acting as their agent. + +The King still makes his speech to Parliament, though the speech is +written by the ministers. They are his ministers, though Parliament +selects them. The power of the King is a convenient fiction. The power +of the President will always remain a convenient fiction, even if it +should come to have no more substance than that of the King. + +In truth it has been the Senate not the Executive that has been +determining our foreign policy in its broader outlines for more than two +years. The Secretary of State works out the details. But the Senate says +"thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And when the Secretary of State +has gone farther, as in the case of the peace treaty with Germany, the +Senate has amended his work. So Senator Penrose did not exaggerate, when +he said apropos of Mr. Hughes's appointment, "It makes no difference who +is Secretary of State, the Senate will make the foreign policy." The +President has only recently declared that it has done so. + +So gradual has been the extension of the Senate's prerogative that few +realize how far it has gone. So low had the Senate sunk in public +estimation during the war that it did not occur to President Wilson that +he might not safely ignore it in making peace. He appointed no Senators +to the delegation which went to Paris. He did not consult the Senate +during the negotiations nor did he ever take pains to keep the Senate +informed. He proceeded on the theory that he might sign treaties with +perfect confidence that the Senate would accept them unquestioningly. +And so impressed was the country at the time with the power of the +Presidency that Mr. Wilson's tacit assumption of dictatorial power over +Congress was generally taken as a matter of course. + +All this was changed under Mr. Wilson's successor. One half of Mr. +Harding's delegation to the Washington Conference was made up of +Senators. At every step of the negotiation the Senate's susceptibilities +were borne in mind. No commitment was entered into which would exceed +the limits set by the Senate to the involvement of this country abroad. +Almost daily Mr. President consulted with Senators and explained to them +what the American Commission was doing. Practically the Executive became +the agent of the Senate in foreign relations and in the end he told the +Senate what a good and faithful servant he had been and how scrupulously +he had respected its will. + +It was only superficially that Secretary Hughes was the outstanding +figure of the Conference. The really outstanding figure was the Senate. +Mr. Hughes was not free. Mr. Harding was not free. The controlling +factor was the Senate. The treaties had to be acceptable to the Senate, +whose views were known in advance. No theory of party authority, of +executive domination, would save them if they contravened the Senatorial +policy disclosed in the Versailles Treaty debate and insisted upon anew +to Mr. Hughes's grievous disappointment when the reservation was +attached to the separate peace with Germany. When it was realized that +Senate opposition to the Four Power Pact had been courted through the +inadvertent guaranty of the home islands of Japan, the agreement was +hastily modified to meet the Senate's views. President and Secretary of +State behaved at this juncture like a couple of clerks caught by their +employer in a capital error. + +And even Mr. Hughes's prominence was half accidental. The Senate is +strong in position but weak in men. Mr. Hughes is vastly Mr. Lodge's +superior in mind, in character, and in personality. Suppose the +situation reversed, suppose the Senate rich in leadership, suppose it +were Mr. Aldrich instead of Mr. Lodge who sat with Mr. Hughes in the +Commission, then the Senate which had made the foreign policy in its +broad outlines would itself have filled in the details, and a Senator +instead of the Secretary of State would have been the chief figure of +the American delegation. + +Where did Mr. Harding's plan of settling international affairs by +conferences originate? You will find it in a document which Senator Knox +brought out to Marion, Ohio, in January, 1921. Reports had come to +Washington that Mr. Harding's Association of Nations, which was being +discussed with the best minds was only Mr. Wilson's league re-cast. The +leaders of the Senate met and agreed on a policy. Mr. Knox took it to +the President elect. Instead of a formally organized association there +was to be nothing more than international conferences and the +appointment of international commissions as the occasion for them arose. +Mr. Harding's policy is the Senate's policy. + +The Senate's victory has been complete. The United States did not ratify +the Versailles Treaty. It did not enter the League of Nations. It did +make a separate treaty of peace with Germany. It did not appoint a +member of the Reparations Commission--the Senate's reservation to Mr. +Hughes's treaty keeping that question in the control of Congress. + +Senatorial control of foreign relations seems now to be firmly +established. No future president, after Mr. Wilson's experiences with +the Versailles Treaty and Mr. Harding's with the Four Power Pact, will +negotiate important foreign engagements without informing himself fully +of the Senate's will. And the principle has been established that the +Senate shall be directly represented on American delegations to world +conferences. + +I recall this history of the recent conflict between the Executive and +the Senate over foreign relations to show how completely in this +important field the theory of presidential dominance has broken down and +been replaced by the practice of senatorial dominance. No amendment to +the constitution has taken place. The President still acts "with the +advice and consent of the Senate." Only now he takes the advice first so +as to be sure of the consent afterward, instead of acting first and +obtaining the advice and consent afterward. + +The Senate has been aided in this conflict with the Executive by the +constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority for the ratification +of a treaty. If a majority would suffice, a President, by invoking the +claims of party, by organizing public opinion, by judiciously using +patronage might put his agreements with foreign nations through. But a +two-thirds vote is not to be obtained by these methods; the only +practicable means is to accept the Senate's views of foreign policy and +conform to it. + +As soon as foreign relations became sufficiently important to fight over +the conflict was inevitable and the victory of the Senate certain. + +The conflict between the two branches of the Government will not stop +with this victory of the Senate. It has always been present and probably +always will be. The importance of the domestic problems that the war +left will cause Congress to insist upon a free hand to make domestic +policies. In the past Congress busied itself about little except the +distribution of moneys for public buildings and river and harbor +improvement. The handling of these funds the legislative branch kept out +of executive control. + +Now public buildings and improvements have become relatively +unimportant. But the deepest economic interests of constituents are +involved. Formerly taxes were small and lightly regarded. Today their +incidence is the subject of a sharp dispute between classes and +industries. + +Furthermore the use of government credit for certain economic ends, such +as those favored by the farmers, will cause a clash between sections, +groups, industries, and strata of society. Policies of large importance +will have to be adopted about which there will be a vast difference of +opinion. The divergent interests cannot be represented in the White +House, for the Presidency embodies the compromise of all the interests. +They will have to find their voice in Congress. When they find their +voice the great policies will be made. And where the great policies will +be made there the power will be. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CONGRESS AT LAST WITH SOMETHING TO DO HAS NO ONE TO DO IT + + +When Lazarus was raised from the dead it took him a long time to find +out that he was again alive. His legs were stiff from being so long +extended. His arms were cramped from being decently arranged across his +breast. The circulation starting in his members produced disagreeable +sensations which recalled his mortal illness and the pains of +dissolution. The last thing that this discomfort suggested was life. + +Even thus it is with Congress, it has been so long dead that it is hard +for it to realize that it has once again come to life. It suffers from +various unpleasant sensations in its members, from blocs, from lack of +leadership, from indifference to party, from factionalism, from +individualism, from incapacity to do business. They are all vaguely +reminiscent of the pains of dissolution. On the dissolution theory they +are decent and explicable, for death is always decent and explicable. + +As signs of life they are scandalous, and everybody body is scandalized +over them for fear that a vital Congress will be something new to reckon +with. + +If Congress does realize that it has waked from the dead, who will be +worse scandalized than the senile persons whom the newspapers +respectfully call its "leaders"? What more threatening spectacle for +second childhood is there than first childhood? + +Suppose Congress were again a lusty and vigorous creature with the blood +of youth in its veins, how long would Henry Cabot Lodge, aged +seventy-two, remain leader of the Senate? Lodge, the irascible old man, +with worn nerves, who claps his hands for the Senate pages as if they +were not of the same flesh and blood with himself, and who would, if he +could follow his instincts, clap his hands in the same way to summon the +majority Senators, the recluse who is kept alive by old servants who +understand and anticipate every whim, to enjoy greedily the petty +distinctions that have come to him late because the Senate itself was +more than half dead? + +And who would be worse scandalized than the ancient committee chairman, +some with one foot in the grave? At one time in the first year of Mr. +Harding's administration the important chairmanships in the Senate were +disposed thus: Finance, the most powerful committee, Senator Penrose, a +dying man; Foreign Relations, Senator Lodge, 72; Interstate Commerce, +Senator Cummins, 72, and broken with illness; Judiciary, Senator +Nelson, 79 and living back in the Civil War in which he served as a +private; Immigration, Senator Colt, 76. + +Suppose Congress should come to life and represent the real interests of +the various sections, classes, and, let us say, kinds of property and +business in this country--how long would the Senate remain such a +pleasant place to die in? + +When these old gentlemen made their successful fight upon President +Wilson they signed their own death warrants, and began putting an end to +the system that made their tenure possible. Only a Congress which had +long been a subject of public contempt could have fallen into and could +have remained in their hands. Granted that Congress is negligible, it +makes no difference who sits in it or how decrepit its leadership. + +But shift power once more to the legislative, and the various +conflicting interests throughout the country will grasp for the offices +now in enfeebled hands. And by taking predominance in foreign relations +away from the Executive and transferring it to themselves, the elderly +and infirm "leaders," who have been tolerated out of half contempt, have +started the avalanche of authority in their direction. It will sweep +them off their unsteady feet. + +Let us examine what they have done. When they opposed Mr. Wilson on the +Versailles Treaty they established the power of the Senate to mark out +broadly the foreign policy of the United States, a dangerous enough +beginning for persons who were merely tolerated because Congress was +nearly negligible and it was a matter of little difference to the public +who its managers were. But when they altered Mr. Harding's treaties they +also denied the authority of the Executive as the head of his party to +align them in support of his program. + +Party authority vested in the Executive thus impaired, it was not long +before the representatives of agricultural states also denied it, and +began to take their orders from the Farm Bureau Federation instead of +from the White House. Then the House leaders in open defiance of the +"head of the party" prepared and reported a soldiers' bonus bill which +contravened the express purposes of the Executive regarding this +legislation. Here we have the organization joining with the farm bloc in +declaring the legislature to be its own master. + +But on what do the octogenarian feet of Mr. Lodge and Mr. Cummins, and +Mr. Colt and Mr. Nelson, and the others, rest except upon party +authority? Not upon representing any real or vital principle in the +national life. Not upon any force of intelligence or personality. + +They move in a region of fictions. They represent the Republican party, +when there is no Republican party, no union on principles, no stable +body of voters, no discipline, no clear social end to be served. + +When votes for legislation must be had, Senator James Watson circulates +about among the faithless pleading in the name of party loyalty--as well +talk of fealty to Jupiter in the capitol of the Popes! + +In extremities the President, as "head of his party," is brought on the +scene,--for all the world like the practice of a certain cult which long +after its founder was dead used to dress up a lay figure to resemble him +and drive it about the marketplace, to reassure the faithful and confirm +the influence of the priests. Mr. Harding is alive enough, but the "head +of his party" is dead and a mere fiction of priests like "Jim" Watson. + +Power has passed or is passing from the Executive and has found no one +in Congress to receive it. The arrival of power causes as much +consternation on the hill as the outbreak of war does among the +incompetent swivel chair bureaucrats of an army in a nation that has +been long at peace. + +Power is passing to Congress because Congress says who shall pay the +taxes and who may use the public credit. Where there was one interest a +generation ago, there are many interests today, each trying to place the +burden of taxation upon others and reaching for the credit itself. +Taxation and credit are the big stakes today and Congress has them in +its atrophied grasp. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JAMES E. WATSON OF INDIANA] + +The question what is the matter with Congress has received more answers +than any other question asked about American institutions. For almost +a generation the national legislature has been regarded as the one +great failure in self government. For years it has been the home of +small men concerned with petty things which it approached in a petty +spirit, incompetent, wasteful, and hypocritical, a trial to the +Executive, almost a plague to the country. It has shared with state +legislatures and municipal boards of aldermen the impatience of the +people. In spite of searchings of the public conscience it has gone from +bad to worse till it is at its lowest point today, in personnel, in +organization, in capacity to transact business. + +What has brought Congress to this state has been the unimportance of its +work, "doing such little things," as Mr. Root said after his six years +in the Senate. Natural economy prevents the sending of a man on a boy's +errand even if the man would go. + +The great power which legislatures have, that over the public purse, has +not been of enough importance to make Congress a great legislature. +Taxes were light and before the war fell so indirectly that the public +gave them little attention. The control of the budget virtually passed +out of the hands of Congress, for executive departments habitually +exceeded their appropriations and Congress always made up the +deficiencies. There was no tax upon incomes. Taxpayers were indifferent. +A few hundred millions more or less was of no account. + +Dispensations to business in the shape of protective duties upon +imports, a form of taxation which once made Congress a dominant factor +in national life, had become steadily less important as American +industry grew strong enough to hold its own market against competition +and to compete itself in other markets. With the subsidence of the +tariff as an issue Congress lost its last power to impose taxes in which +the country was deeply interested. Where the control of the public purse +and taxes are unimportant, legislatures are weak, unless executive +authority is vested in a Cabinet formed from among their members. + +With the enfeeblement of Congress through the growing unimportance of +the taxing power, its great function, came the tendency to magnify the +Executive. Power has to go somewhere, and it went down Pennsylvania +Avenue. And this movement coincided with the development of +centralization. Congress, which was full of the spirit of localism, was +not a perfect instrument of centralization. The Executive was. + +To elevate the President it was necessary to depress Congress. It became +the fashion to speak sneeringly of the Legislative branch, to sympathize +with presidents who "had Congress on their hands," to write of "the +shame of the Senate," and when any issue existed between the two parts +of the government to throw the force of public opinion on the side of +the executive. The press printed endless criticism of the Senate and +the House. Theories of government were invented to reduce Congress to a +subordinate place. + +Meanwhile Congress, having regard for the character of its membership, +was agreed that incompetence should suffer no disabilities. All that was +required for political preferment within it was political longevity. + +The seniority rule, by which committee chairmanships went not to ability +but to long service, favored mediocrity and second childhood. Even more, +incompetence banded together jealously to protect itself against +competence and shunted it into minor assignments. While the public was +regarding Congress with contempt Congress was well satisfied to make +itself contemptible. + +Suppose we had developed a capacity for breeding statesmen in this +country, which we have not, would any man of first-class talents seek a +public career in such an institution as I have described? In the first +place, the people were visiting Congress with indifference, or worse +than indifference, and ambition will not serve under indifference. In +the next place that great power which makes legislatures dominant, the +power to tax and to distribute the fruits of taxation, had become +temporarily unimportant; and again, Congress itself was organized for +self-protection against brains and character. + +Senator Root quit the Senate in disgust. Senator Kenyon has just +followed his example in even deeper disgust. A Tammany Congressman after +one term said, "They tie horses to Congressmen in Washington." + +Congress is upon the whole a faithful reflection of the American +political consciousness. Democracy is a relatively new thing. It has not +taken hold of the minds and hearts of men. Shadowy and half-unconscious +faiths dispute its place. De Gourmont writing of the persistence of +Paganism in Catholicism, says that no religion ever dies but lives on in +its successor. So no government ever dies but lives on in its successor. +Why take the trouble to govern yourselves when your vital interests are +so well directed by the higher governments, of Progress, of economic +Forces, of heroes and captains of industry who ruled by a sort of divine +right? The less you try to muddle through by means of poor human +instruments in this well-ordered world the better. + +For the limited tasks of self-government, why should special talents be +required? We are still near enough the pioneer age to adhere to pioneer +conceptions. Roosevelt, unfortunately, is the national ideal. + +We look hopefully for great amateurs like him among insurance agents, +building contractors, lawyers, country editors, bankers, retiring, with +modest fortunes made, into public life. We put the jack of all trades +everywhere. Into the Presidency--and I don't know why we should not in +that office, for it is a waste of material and a misdirection of effort +in self-government to throw away a first-class public man on a four-year +job. Into the Senate and the House, into the Cabinet, where a lawyer +without previous experience of international affairs conducts our +foreign relations in the most difficult period of the world's history, +matching the power of his country against the wits of other countries' +practiced representatives, and thus obtaining a certain forbearance of +their extreme skill. + +Into the diplomatic posts, where an editor, Colonel Harvey, noted only +for his audacity, holds the most important ambassadorship. Those who +have seen the Colonel at meetings of the Supreme Council tell the +amazing story that he was a silent and uneasy figure in the conferences +of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Briand, perhaps because he is only an +observer, perhaps also because he was in the company of practiced +statesmen and diplomats. + +However, our system has its compensations. The picture of the robustious +Colonel uneasy in Zion is one of them. + +In another great diplomatic post is Mr. Richard Washburn Child, a +quantity producer of fiction, or sort of literary Henry Ford. In +another, Paris, the second most important in the world, Mr. Myron +Herrick, a retired business man. Senator Foraker said of him, at a +critical moment of his public career, "_De mortuis nil_." "Don't you +wish to finish that quotation, 'nisi bonum,'" asked the reporter who was +seeking a statement. "No," said the Senator sharply; "De mortuis nil." +Of the ambassador to France nil, except that he comes from Ohio. + +But when we, given all these causes for the weakness of Congress, the +frail hold which the idea of self-government has upon the popular mind, +the unimportance of the taxing power, the tendency to concentrate on the +executive at the expense of the legislative, the obstacles to ability +which mediocrity has erected in Congress, we have not explained the +present extraordinary confusion and demoralization in the legislative +branch. Most of these causes have been operating for some time, yet +Congress has been able to function. Only since Mr. Harding became +President has the breakdown of Congress been marked. + +If you ask observers in Washington why the last Congress failed more +completely than any of its predecessors, with one voice they reply: +"Lack of leadership." Everybody cackles of leadership as if lack of +leadership were a cause and not a symptom. What is it that makes a +leader and followers unless it is a common purpose? + +[Illustration: REPRESENTATIVE FREDERICK H. GILLETT OF MASSACHUSETTS] + +The weakness of Mr. Harding, Mr. Lodge, Speaker Gillett, Mr. Mondell +lies partly in themselves, but it is made more apparent by the +difficulties that confront them. It traces back to the uncertainties +in the national mind. Who could lead representatives of taxpayers +staggering under the costs of the war and representatives of soldiers +striving to lay an added burden on the taxpayers? Who could lead +representatives of farmers who demand that a large share of the credit +available in this country be mobilized by the government for the +subvention of agriculture and representatives of commerce and +manufacture who wish to keep the government from competing with them for +the stock of credit? Or labor which insists that the way to improve +business is by stimulating demand at home through liberal wages, +increasing consumption; and the other classes which insist that the way +to restore business is by making increased consumption possible to them +through lower prices only to be accomplished through lower wages? The +conflict runs across party lines. The old rallying cries fall on deaf +ears. + +The Republican party was based on the common belief that government +favors delivered at the top percolated down, by a kind of gravity that +operated with rough justice, to all levels of society, like water from a +reservoir on a hill reaching all the homes of a city. When you called +for loyalty to that you called for loyalty to everybody's stomach, +expressed in the half-forgotten phrase: "The full dinner pail." + +Now, the various elements of society are doubtful of what may reach them +by the force of gravity from the top. Each insists that government +favor shall enter at its level and be diffused from that center. Would +you make the nation happy and rich, give the soldiers a +five-billion-dollar bonus and start them buying? Give the farmers a +several-billion-dollar guarantee of their staples and start prosperity +on the farm. Give labor high wages and start prosperity there by +stimulating consumption. Give the consumer lower prices by cutting wages +and start prosperity there. Shift the burden of taxation somewhat from +wealth and start prosperity once more in the good old way by favors at +the top. + +One might compare the breakup that has occurred in this country to the +breakup that took place in Russia after the first revolution, the +peaceful and ineffective revolution of 1905. All parties in Russia +united against absolutism. A measure of representative government being +established and the main object of the revolution being achieved, all +parties fell to quarrelling among themselves as to which should profit +most by the new institutions. + +Under Mr. Roosevelt and his successors a mild revolution was +accomplished. People turned against economic absolutism. They had begun +to question the unregulated descent of favors from the top. They doubted +the force of gravity that used to fill dinner pails. They demanded some +representation in the process of filling dinner pails. They set up a +government at Washington to control credit and transportation. + +And now they have fallen apart over who shall pay the taxes, who shall +have use of the credit, who shall profit by lowered freight rates, +rebates in principle, special favors in transportation, under a new +name. + +When men today deplore the lack of leadership they are comparing Mr. +Harding with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Lodge and Mr. Mondell +with Senator Hanna and Senator Aldrich. Today's chiefs of state are of +smaller stature. Mr. Harding has been a drifter all his life; he has not +the native force of Mr. Roosevelt, the sheer vitality which gloried in +overcoming obstacles. He has not the will of Mr. Wilson. The petulant +Lodge is not the same order of being as the brutal, thick-necked Hanna, +or the more finished but still robust Aldrich. + +But beyond this personal superiority which the leaders of the past had, +they enjoyed the advantage of standing upon sure ground. Mr. Hanna +belonged to that fortunate generation which never doubted, whether it +was in religion or morals or politics. He may not have put it so to +himself, but behind everything that he did lay the tacit assumption that +the business system was divinely ordained. The hand of Providence was +conspicuous everywhere in America's rise, but nowhere more than in the +rapid turning, unprecedented in the world's history, of minerals and +forests into a civilization. + +In times of daily miracles it is easy to believe. Mr. Hanna believed, +the public believed, Congress believed. Mr. Hanna spoke for this +divinely ordained system which was developing an undeveloped continent +as one had never been in the memory of man, making us all richer, with a +certain rough justice, according to our deserts. + +He himself was a pioneer. He himself had created wealth. He knew the +creators of wealth. He delivered the commandments handed down to him on +the mountain. With God so much on his side a much lesser man than Hanna +would have been a great leader. God isn't on the side of Mr. Lodge. That +is the difference. + +Mr. Aldrich represented a less pure faith. What had been a primitive +religion had become an established church. He had behind him a power of +organization in business and Congress that Hanna had not. The public may +have been less faithful; still the religion he represented was the +official religion. + +Like Hanna, he was rich and a creator of wealth; in addition he was +connected by marriage with the richest family in the United States. He +was the spokesman of business, and even if faith was decaying no one +seriously questioned the sacred character of business as the instrument +of Providence for making America great, rich, and free. + +The chief aim was the creation of wealth. No one could doubt that the +business organization was accomplishing it with unparalleled success. +Perhaps the heads of the business organization kept a little too much of +the newly created wealth to themselves, but at least everyone shared in +it and it was wise to let well enough alone. Where there is such +substantial unity as existed at that time, no great personal qualities +are required for leadership. + +And Mr. Aldrich was not endowed with great personal qualities. He has +been gone from Washington only a dozen years, and yet no tradition of +him survives except that he managed the Senate machine efficiently. In +type he was the business executive. He represented more fully than +anyone else in the Senate the one great interest of the country. He +stood for a reality, and it gave him tremendous power. + +His mind was one of ordinary range. He traded in tariff schedules and +erected majorities upon the dispensing of favors. He bestowed public +buildings and river improvements in return for votes. Leaders have not +now these things to give or have them in insufficient quantities and on +too unimportant a scale. + +No great piece of constructive legislation serves to recall him. +Primarily a man of business, he nevertheless attached his name to the +grotesque Aldrich-Vreeland currency act. The work of the monetary +commission of which he was the head, and which led to the present +Federal Reserve Law, was the work of college professors and economists. + +Naturally a better leader than Mr. Lodge because he met men more easily +upon a common ground and had more vitality than the Massachusetts +Senator has, he was no better leader than any one of half a dozen +present Senators would be if the aim of business were accepted today by +the country as the great social aim, as it was in his day, and if any +one of the six now spoke for business in the Senate as in his time he +did. + +Give Mr. Brandegee or Mr. Lenroot or Mr. Wadsworth a people accepting +that distribution which worked out from extending to the heads of the +business organization every possible favor and immunity, as the +distribution best serving the interests of all, and add unto him plenty +of public buildings and river improvements, and he could lead as well as +Mr. Aldrich. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTERLUDE. INTRODUCING A FEW MEMBERS OF THE UPPER HOUSE BOOBOISIE AND +SOME OTHERS + + +There is a saying that in American families there is only three or four +generations from riches to shirt sleeves. Mr. Hanna is the first +generation, Mr. Aldrich is the second generation. In Mr. Penrose and Mr. +Lodge you reach what is a common phase of American family history, the +eccentric generation. And in Senator Jim Watson and Senator Charles +Curtis, who are just coming on the scene as "leaders," you reach once +more political shirt sleeves. + +The American family dissipating its patrimony, produces invariably the +son who is half contemptuous of the old house that founded his fortunes, +who is half highbrow, who perhaps writes books as well as keeping them, +or it may be bolts to the other side altogether. + +So the Hanna-Aldrich stock produced Henry Cabot Lodge, a sort of +political James Hazen Hyde, who stayed at home and satisfied his longing +for abroad by serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But +perhaps it would be fairer to Mr. Lodge to say of him what a witty +friend of mine did, "Lodge is what Henry James would have been if Henry +James had remained in America and gone into politics." Or he is what +Henry Adams might have been if Henry Adams had been less honest in his +contempt for democracy. + +The last leaf of that New England tree whose fruit was an expatriate +literature and expatriate lives, the limit of Mr. Lodge's expatriation +was an interest in foreign affairs when redder-blooded Americans were +happily ignorant of them. If business had been choosing spokesmen at +Washington it would no more have picked out Mr. Lodge than it would have +picked out James Hazen Hyde or Henry James. Mr. Lodge's leadership was a +sign of decay. + +But some will say business at this time had Senator Penrose as its +spokesman. I doubt it. Senator Penrose was that other son of the family +in whose blood runs all the ancestral energies without the ancestral +restraint. + +By the time he achieved prominence business in politics was no longer +quite respectable. People said, creating the Penrose legend, "Why, +Penrose would stop at nothing. He'd even represent the selfish interests +here in Washington." Therefore it was considered that he must represent +them. And he did to an extent, speaking for Henry C. Frick and some +others of Pennsylvania, but he was in no adequate sense the successor +of Aldrich and Hanna. + +Had business chosen a spokesman at Washington, he must have been +respectable. Hanna was that most respectable of Americans, the highly +successful man who has played for and won a great fortune. Aldrich was +that equally respectable American, the conservative manager of the +established corporation. + +There is a story that when Penrose became boss of Pennsylvania the +Republican politicians of the State were anxious about the effect his +personal reputation would have upon the voters. Finally they went to +him, as the elders sometimes go to the young parson, and said, "The +organization thinks the people would like it better if you were +married," "All right, boys, if you think so," Penrose replied; "let the +organization pick the gal." The organization recoiled from this +cynicism. But business is harder. Business, if it had really identified +itself with Penrose, would have "picked the gal." + +No better evidence of the tenuity of his connection with business is +required than his outbreak in 1920, "I won't have the international +bankers write the platform and nominate the candidate at Chicago." + +Mr. Penrose enjoyed a "_succés de scandale_." He was what the hypocrites +in Washington secretly desired to be but lacked the courage to be. He +lived up to the aristocratic tradition, at its worst; which everyone +admires, especially at its worst. He did on a grand scale what anyone +else would have been damned for doing on a lesser scale and was loved +for being so splendidly shocking. + +He was the village sport, with the best blood of the village in his +veins, and was the village delight, the man about whom all the best +stories were whispered. He had the clear mind which comes from scorn of +pretense. But all this is not greatness, nor is it leadership. The +Republicans in the Senate before being led by Mr. Penrose would have +insisted on "picking the gal." They like to see framed marriage +certificates in the party household. + +The patrimony is gone and we reach shirt sleeves in Senator Charles +Curtis and Senator James Watson, one of whom will succeed Mr. Lodge when +he dies, retires, or is retired, and the other of whom will succeed Mr. +Cummins as president pro tem when he similarly disposes of himself or is +disposed of. + +Neither of them has the stature or solidity of Hanna or Aldrich, and +they will not have supporting them unity in party or in national +sentiment. Neither of them has the romantic quality of Mr. Penrose or +Mr. Lodge. Neither of them will ever be a leader in any real sense of +the word. Neither of them will have anything to lead. + +As frequently happens when you reach shirt sleeves by the downward +route, you find the accumulative instinct reasserting itself on a petty +scale. Look at the rather shabby clothes that Senator Curtis wears, in +spite of his considerable wealth, and you are sure that you have to do +with a hoarder. And that is what he is; a hoarder of political minutiæ. + +Current report is that he is the best poker player in either house of +Congress. You can imagine him sitting across the table watching the +faces of his antagonists with a cold eye, which no tremor of a muscle, +no faint coming or going of color, no betraying weakness escapes. + +That is his forte in politics, knowing all the little things about men +which reveal their purposes or operate in unexpected ways as hidden +motives. + +He has a perfect card catalogue of nearly all the voters of Kansas. It +is kept up to date. It reports not merely names and addresses but +personal details, the voter's point of view, what interests him, what +influences may be brought to bear on him. Curtis is a hoarder, with an +amazing capacity for heaping up that sort of information. + +His mind is a card catalogue of the Senate, vastly more detailed than +the card catalogue of Kansas. He watches the Senate as he watches the +faces of his antagonist in a poker game. He knows the little +unconsidered trifles which make men vote this way and that. And he is so +objective about it all that he rarely deceives himself. If into this +concern with the small motives which move men there crept a certain +contempt of humanity he might mislead himself; he might be hateful, too; +but his objectivity saves him; he is as objective as a card catalogue +and no more hateful. + +But you see how far short all this falls from leadership, or +statesmanship, or greatness of any description. Usefulness is there +certainly; card catalogues are above all useful, especially when there +is variety and diversity to deal with, as there is coming to be in a +Senate ruled by blocs and frequented by undisciplined individualism. + +If Curtis kept a journal he would hand down to posterity a most perfect +picture of men and motives in Washington,--if, again, posterity should +be interested in the fleeting and inconsiderable figures who fill the +national capital "in this wicked and adulterous generation seeking for a +sign"--I am quoting the Bible trained Secretary of State in one of his +petulant moments. + +If he had the malice of Saint Simon, the journal would be diverting, but +he is without malice. He has no cynical conception of men's weakness and +smallness as something to play upon. He accepts Senators as they are, +sympathetically. What makes them vote this way and that is the major +consideration of politics. His records of the Kansas electorate are more +important to him than principles, policies, or morals. The efficient +election district Captain of the Senate, that is Curtis. + +A more likely successor to Lodge is "Jim" Watson of Indiana. I attended +a theatrical performance in Washington recently. Nearby sat the Indiana +Senator. His neighbor, whom I did not recognize, doubtless some +politician from Indiana, sat with his arm about Watson's neck, before +the curtain rose, pouring confidences into Watson's ear. + +Watson is given to public embraces. His arm falls naturally about an +interlocutor's shoulders or, and this is important as showing that Jim +is not merely patronizing, descending affectionately from the great +heights of the Senatorship, Jim himself, as at the theatre, is the +object of the embrace. But perhaps that is finer condescension. + +If the characteristic gesture of Lodge is the imperious clapping of his +hands for the Senate pages and the revealing trait of Curtis is +extraordinary intuition about the cards in other hands around the +lamp-lit table, the soul of Watson is in the embrace. His voice is a +caress. He kisses things through. He never errs in personal relations, +if you like to be embraced--and most men do, by greatness. + +In one of his less successful moments he represented, at Washington the +National Manufacturers' Association, at that time a rather shady +organization of lesser business men. If he had not been the orator that +he is he would have been with that circumambulatory arm of his, an +inevitable lobbyist. + +For Watson is an orator, of the old school, the Harding school. They +employ the same loose style of speech, flabby as unused muscles, words +that come into your head because you have often heard them on the stump +and in the Senate, and read them in country editorials, words that have +long lost their precise meaning but evoke the old pictures in the minds +of an emotional and unthinking electorate. At this art of emitting a +long rumble of speech which is not addressed to the mind Watson has no +equal. + +It is an American art and puzzling to foreigners. Vice-Admiral Kato, not +the head of the Japanese delegation but the second Kato, had enough +English to remark it. "Your President," he said, "is a charming man, but +why does he put such funny things in his speeches?" + +In the mere mastery of this kind of English Mr. Harding may equal +Watson, but as an orator the Indianian has what the President never had; +the unctuous quality in him which makes him embrace readily lets him +pour out his soul freely. He has thunders in his voice, he tosses his +head with its fuzzy hair magnificently, he has gusto. He has +imagination. He is a big, lovable if not wholly admirable, boy playing +at oratory, playing at statesmanship, playing above all at politics. +Nothing is very real to him, not even money; he put all he had into an +irrigation project and left it there. Just now he irrigates with the +tears in his voice the arid places in the Republican party where +loyalty should grow. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JOSEPH S FRELINGHUYSEN OF NEW JERSEY] + +I present these characterizations of Senate leaders, past, present, and +future, to indicate through them what the Senate itself is, and to +suggest what conditions have given quite ordinary men power and how +feeble leadership has become, with the country no longer agreed how best +to promote the general good, and with Congress as it has been in recent +years a relatively unimportant factor in the national government. + +Senator Platt used to say of an habitual candidate for nomination to the +governorship of New York, Timothy L. Woodruff, "Well, it may taper down +to Tim." We have "tapered down to Tim,"--or rather to "Jim"--in the +Senate because as a people we have been indifferent and unsure, and +because there has been little use for anything but "Tims" or "Jims" in +Washington. Nature seems to abhor a waste in government. + +Those who ascribe all the troubles in Congress to lack of leadership, +and go no further, blame the poverty of our legislative life upon the +popular election of Senators and upon the choice of candidates at direct +primaries. But the decay began before the system changed. We resorted to +new methods of nomination and election because the old methods were +giving us Lorimers and Addickses. Probably we gained nothing, but we +lost little. + +Big business, so long as the taxing power, through the imposition of +the tariff, was important to it, and so long as it was accepted as the +one vital interest of the country, saw to it that it was effectively +represented in Congress. It was then somebody's job to see that at least +some solid men went to Washington. It has of late been nobody's job. +There has been no real competition for seats in the national +legislature. + +The Senate has tempted small business men who can not arise to the level +of national attention through their control of industry, and small +lawyers similarly restricted in their efforts for publicity. It is an +easily attained national stage. + +It appeals to that snobbish instinct--of wives sometimes--which seeks +social preferment not to be obtained in small home towns, or denied +where family histories are too well known. + +It allures the politician, bringing opportunity to play the favorite +game of dispensing patronage and delivering votes, with the added pomp +of a title. + +It is the escape of the aristocrat, whose traditions leave him the +choice between idleness and what is called "public service." + +It is the escape of the successful man who has found his success empty +and tries to satisfy the unsatisfied cravings of his nature. Such men +"retire" into it, as it was reported to President Harding's indignation +that one of the Chicago banker candidates for the Secretaryship of the +Treasury wished to retire into the Cabinet. Some enter it for one of +these motives, more from a combination of them, but, generally, it is +the promised land of the bored, some of whom find it only a mirage. + +A typical Senator is Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, one of the smaller +business men being drawn into public life. Son of a country minister, he +started as an insurance agent. Nature equipped him with unusual energy +and aggressiveness and those two qualities brought success in writing +insurance. Nothing in his early training inhibited his robust +temperament. Ruddy and vigorous, he is not sicklied o'er with any pale +cast whatever. Plainly he has a zest for life, that easily accessible +American life where good mixers abound. + +Not a highbrow, he yet recognizes that literature has its place, on all +four walls of a large room, and bought in sets. + +Having the American horror of loneliness, whether social or moral, you +find him always going along with his party. When his set divides he +balances between the two factions as long as possible and elects to go +with the more numerous. Simple, likable, honest, safe so long as +majorities are safe, and that is the theory we are working on, he is the +average man in everything but his aggressiveness and energy. + +No, he also rises above the average in possessing such a name as +Frelinghuysen. You enter his library and you see a banner of the +campaign of Clay and Frelinghuysen. He will recite to you campaign +songs of those unsuccessful candidates for President and Vice-President. +Another Frelinghuysen was a Cabinet member. Another Frelinghuysen, of +the wealthier branch of the family, has an assured social position. + +None of these famous Frelinghuysens is an ancestor. Each of them is a +challenge. If he could have found an ancestor! If an insurance company +were a high place from which to survey the world at one's feet! But, no! +Ancestors, power, publicity, social prestige, all lie beyond the reach +of small business success. + +In the Senate men, important men, come to you for favors; it is so much +better than going to them to write policies. From the Senatorship you +condescend; there really is a world to which a Senator can condescend. +Washington is a social melting pot. No one asks whether you are one of +the Blanks. You are Senator Blank and that is enough. And if you are so +fortunate, by your very averageness, to attach yourself to the average +man whose fortune makes him President, and you become one of the Harding +Senators, one of the intimates, you are lifted up: like Bottom, you are +translated. You are the familiar of greatness. + +As a legislator you deal with policies, international and domestic, in +the realm of ideas--as when you sit in your library, four square with +all the wisdom of the ages. + +If you have enough of the boy about you, like Frelinghuysen, you enjoy +all this hugely. You have projected your ego beyond the limits of the +insurance business. You look among the branches of the Frelinghuysen +family tree without losing countenance. Who knows that there won't be +another "and Frelinghuysen" ticket, this time a successful one? + +Not every senator has escaped so nearly from the failures which attend +success as has Frelinghuysen. Nor is his escape complete. A sense of +unreality haunts him. Aggressiveness in his case covers it, as it so +often does a feeling of weakness. After he has blustered through some +utterance, he will buttonhole you and ask, "Did I make a damn fool of +myself? Now, the point I was trying to make was, etc. Did I get it +clear? Or did I seem like a damn fool?" + +Less agile minded than Senator Edge, he watches the motions of his New +Jersey colleague as a fascinated bird watches those of a snake or a cat. +Intellectually he is not at ease, even in the Senate. + +Another of the Harding set is Harry New of Indiana, one of the "Wa'al +naow" school of statesmen, in dress and speech the perfect county +chairman of the stage. The broad-brimmed black felt hat, winter and +summer, has withstood all the insidious attacks of fashion. The nasal +voice has equally resisted all the temptations to conformity with the +softer tones which are now everywhere heard. In politics one has to be +regular, and New has the impulse to individuality, which with Borah and +LaFollette manifests itself in political isolation. With New it +manifests itself in hat and speech. New thus remains a person, not +merely a clothes-horse which is recorded "aye" when Mr. Lodge votes +"aye" and "no" when Mr. Lodge votes "no." But this is hardly fair. Mr. +New has been irregular in other ways. He has not made money; he has lost +it, a fortune in a stone quarry. He is indifferent to it. This marks him +as a person. He would rather whip a stream for trout than go after +dollars with a landing net. + +Whipping a stream for trout is the clue to Harry New. If you are a +fisherman you impute all sorts of wiles to the fish. You match your wits +against the sharp wits under the water, and your ego is fortified when, +the day being dark and your hand being cunning, you land a mess from the +stream. The world is a trout stream to New. The hat and the nasal accent +are the good old flies that Isaak Walton recommended. + +There is the type of mind which sees craft where others see simplicity. +We associate shrewdness with the kind of hat New wears and the kind of +voice he has preserved against the seductions of politeness. It is one +of our rural traditions. Suppose shrewdness that asks no more than +conversation and a small mess of fish. It is delightful. As we listen to +it arriving after the most penetrating exposition at the same +conclusions which we have reached directly and stupidly, we are +flattered. We realize that we, too, are shrewd, unconsciously so, as, +wasn't it Molière's bourgeois gentleman, who learned that he was +unconsciously a gentleman, since he had been doing all his life some of +the things that gentlemen did? + +A playboy of the western plains, New would be happier if his colleague, +Jim Watson, did not also take himself seriously as a politician. "Jim," +says New, "is an orator, a great orator, but he ought to let politics +alone; as a politician he is, like all orators a child." + +New is no orator. A fair division would be for Watson to be the orator +and New the politician. But no one is ready to admit that he is no +politician. For New politics is craft; for Watson it is embraces. At a +dinner in Indiana, New contrived to have his rival for the senatorship, +Beveridge, and the politically outlawed Mayor of Indianapolis, Lew +Shank, not invited. Watson would have led them both in with an arm +around the neck of each. That individualism which makes New preserve the +hat and the accent makes him punish foes, or is it that the sense of +being "close to Harding" robs him of discretion? + +In the board of aldermen of any large city you will find a dozen +Calders, local builders or contractors, good fellows who have the gift +of knowing everyone in their districts, who by doing little favors here +and there get themselves elected to the municipal legislature; they see +that every constituent gets his street sign and sidewalk encumbrance +permits, interview the police in their behalf when necessary, and the +bright young men who compose the traditional humor of the daily press +refer to them gaily as "statesmen." + +The art of being a Senator like Calder is the art of never saying "no." +He is worth mentioning because he has the bare essentials of +senatorship, the habit of answering all letters that come to him, the +practice of introducing by request all bills that anyone asks to have +introduced, industry in seeking all jobs and favors that anyone comes to +him desiring. + +He "goes to the mat" for everybody and everything. He shakes everybody's +hand. He is a good news source to representatives of the local press and +is paid for his services in publicity. New York is populous and sent +many soldiers to the late war. Nevertheless, the mother or father of a +soldier from that state who did not receive a personal letter from +Calder must have eluded the post office. + +He votes enthusiastically for everything that everybody is for. He is +unhappy when he has to take sides on sharply debated issues. Morality is +a question of majorities. He finds safety in numbers. + +[Illustration: SENATOR HARRY S. NEW OF INDIANA] + +Nature was not kind to Calder; it left him with no power to throw a +bluff. He is plainly what he is. He has neither words nor manner. His +colleagues look down on him a little. But most of them are after all +only Calder plus, and plus, generally speaking, not so very much. He is +the Senator reduced to the lowest terms. + +Calder is timid, more timid than Frelinghuysen with his eternal +buttonholing you to ask what impression he has made, more timid than +anyone except Kellogg of Minnesota. The latter is in a constant state of +flutter. Little and wisplike physically he seems to blow about with +every breeze of politics. He is so unsure that his nerves are always on +edge, in danger of breaking. When he was balancing political +consequences over nicely during the League of Nations discussion, +Ex-President Taft said to him impatiently: "The trouble with you, Frank, +is that you have no guts." Kellogg straightened up all his +inches--physically he is a white-haired and bent Will H. Hays--and +replied, "I allow no man to say that to me." He fluttered out, and Mr. +Taft being kind-hearted followed him to apologize. + +If you could analyze the uneasiness of Mr. Kellogg you would understand +the fear which haunts the minds of all Senators. Mr. Kellogg comes to +Washington after an enormously successful career at the bar. He is rich. +He is respected. His place in society is secure. What would the loss of +the senatorship mean to such a man? He ought to have all the confidence +which is supposed to be in the man who rises in the world, all that +which comes from an established position. Unlike most great lawyers who +retire into the Senate, Mr. Kellogg does not merely interest himself in +constitutional questions, like a child with molasses on its fingers +playing with feathers. He is industrious. He interests himself in the +Senate's business. He develops nice scruples which can not be brushed +aside. He wears himself out over them. He hesitates. He trembles. The +certainty with which his mind must have operated in the field of legal +principles deserts him in the field of political expediency. Or perhaps +it is that he sees both principles and expediency and can not choose +between the two. + +Wadsworth of New York is an exception to the general run of Senators. He +belongs by birth to the class which is traditionally free from +hypocrisy. He is not boisterously contemptuous of the slavishness of +Senators as Penrose was. He is quietly contemptuous. His voice has a +note of well-bred impatience in it. He has not Penrose's pleasure in +mere shocking, but he has the aristocratic hatred of moral ostentation. +The kind of thing that is not done is the kind of thing that is not +done. You don't do it and make no parade of your abstinence. Wadsworth +does not open his home to all his New York colleagues in both houses +just because it is politically expedient. His house is his own, and +so is his conscience, which is not surrendered at the demands of woman +suffrage or of the dries. He has courage. He has convictions. He is +lonely. To be otherwise than lonely in the Senate you must be a +Frelinghuysen, an Elkins, a Newberry, a New, a Watson, or a Hale. He +will never be a leader. He has no more place in the Senate as it is than +Lord Robert Cecil, a much larger man, has in the House of Commons as it +is. Both belong to another day and generation. Neither is sure of +anything but himself and each counts the world well lost. Both represent +the aristocratic tradition. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JAMES W. WADSWORTH OF NEW YORK] + +Industry makes Reed Smoot one of the most useful of the Senators. He has +a passion for details. He reads all the bills. He makes himself a master +of the Government's appropriations and expenditures. He exudes figures +from every pore. By temperament Mr. Smoot is unhappy, and he finds cause +of dark foreboding in the mounting costs of government. His voice has a +scolding note. His manner and appearance is that of a village elder. His +heart is sore as he regards the political world about him, its +wastefulness, its consumption of white paper, on leaves to print and on +reports which no one reads. He is the aggrieved parent. "My children," +he seems always to say, "you must mend your ways." He specializes in +misplaced commas. Nothing is too trivial for his all seeing eyes. In +committee he talks much, twice as much as anyone else, about points +which escape the attention of all his colleagues. Senators, wishing to +get through no matter how, regard him as a pest. Only an unimaginative +and uncreative mind can occupy itself as Smoot's does. He is a building +inspector rather than a builder. With his fussiness, his minor prophetic +voice, his holier-than-thou attitude toward waste, he can never be a +leader of the Senate to which the idle apprentice, the good fellow, who +dines out much in the Harding Senatorial set, the small business man +seeking a place in society, give its tone and character. + +One can not present a complete gallery of the Senate in the space of a +single chapter. I have chosen a few characteristic figures, the leaders +past, present, and to come, the small business man who seeks social +preferment or the destruction of a title in Washington, such as Calder +and Frelinghuysen, the politician who likes to play the game better in +the Capitol than at home, like New, the aristocrat who escapes from the +boredom of doing nothing into the boredom of a democratic chamber, the +gradgrind legislator of whom there are few like Smoot, the half party +man, half bloc man like Capper. + +[Illustration: SENATOR WILLIAM M. CALDER OF NEW YORK] + +All of these men belong to a party and are limited by that party's +weakness, its lack of principles, the caution which it has to use in +avoiding the alienation of its loosely held supporters. The party +program is something on which all kinds of people can stand. Necessarily +the party men in the Senate are tied down to a cause that is largely +negative. They can not be other than feeble and ineffective figures. + +The weakness of parties has led to the emergence of a few outstanding +individual Senators who must be examined to see whether around them the +new Senate which will come with the shift of power and responsibility to +the legislative branch can be built. The most brilliant and interesting +of them is Senator Borah, but it is significant that the farm bloc +looking for a leader did not turn to him, but chose rather much less +significant and effective men. + +Yet the Idaho Senator seems the natural rallying point for any movement +which will give new life and force to the Senate. He is established. He +is the most potent single individual in the upper house. So far as there +is any opposition to President Harding and his friends, Mr. Borah is +that opposition. His is the intelligence which inspires the Democratic +party when it consents to be inspired by intelligence. He believes that +the revolution has come, not one of street fighting and bomb throwing +but a peaceful change which has made the old parties meaningless, +destroyed the old authorities and set men free for the new grouping that +is to take place. Others in the Senate see this and are frightened. +Borah sees it and is glad. His bonds are loosed and he is a vastly +braver, sincerer and more effective Senator than ever before. + +It is absurd to use the word radical of Borah, Johnson, or LaFollette, +for none of them is truly radical; but if one must do so for the lack of +any better term, then Borah is the conservatives' radical. The angriest +reactionary remains calm when his name is mentioned, perhaps because +Borah never gets into a passion himself and never addresses himself to +popular prejudice. He is not a mob orator. He is impersonal in his +appeals. No one any longer suspects him of an ambition to be President. +He seems, like a hermit, to have divorced himself from the earthly +passions of politics and to have become pure intellect operating in the +range of public affairs. He is almost a sage while still a Senator. + +If we had the custom of electing our Ex-Presidents to the Senate, you +can imagine one of them, beyond the average of intelligence, freed from +ambition through having filled the highest office, occupying a place +like that of Borah. + +Borah perhaps likes it too well ever to descend into the market place +and become a leader. His is an enviable lot, for he is the most nearly +free man in Washington; why should he exchange the immunity he possesses +for a small group of followers? Besides he believes in the power of +oratory rather than in the power of organization. He said to me at the +Republican Convention of 1916, "I could stampede this crowd for +Roosevelt." The crowd was thoroughly organized against Roosevelt. + +Nature made him an orator, one of the greatest in the country. And he +has come to be satisfied with the gift he has. The unimportance of his +state, Idaho, has freed him from any illusions about himself with +respect to the Presidency. The habit of carrying a comb in his vest +pocket marks him as free from the social ambitions which number more +victims in the Senate than the ambition for the presidency. He is almost +a disembodied spirit politically, of the revolution he discerns he will +be a spectator. + +Hiram Johnson is a declining figure. I see no reason to modify the +conclusion which was reached about him in the _Mirrors of Washington_, +that he thought more of men than of principles and especially of one +man, Johnson. The test of his sincerity came when the vote was reached +on the unseating of Senator Newberry for spending too much money in the +Michigan primaries. + +Johnson's great issue a year before had been sanctity of popular +nominations. Yet when he had an opportunity to speak and act against a +brazen even though foolish attempt to buy a nomination, he was rushing +wildly across the continent, arriving after the vote had been taken. + +On reaching Washington, he called his newspaper friends before him to +explain the difficulties and delays that had made him late. When he had +finished a nasal voice from the press remarked, "Senator, there will be +great public sympathy with you as a victim of the railroads. But the +people will only know how great their loss has been if you will tell +them now how you would have voted if you had been here." Johnson +adjourned the meeting hastily without a reply. + +The absence from the roll call and the theatrical attempt to make it +appear accidental were typical. Johnson had won the Michigan primaries +in the national campaign of 1920. The delegates were in control of +Newberry's political friends. They remained firm for Johnson throughout +the balloting. Johnson avoided voting against their leader although his +principles required that he should lead the fight for his unseating. + +Johnson has always over-emphasized Johnson. At the Progressive +convention in 1912 when Roosevelt was nominated for the Presidency and +Johnson for the Vice-Presidency, it was proposed, since both were in +attendance, to bring both on the stage and introduce them to the +delegates. The natural order was Roosevelt first, since he was the +nominee for President and since he was, moreover, one of the most +distinguished figures in the world, and Johnson, since he had second +place, second. But Johnson would go second to no man. Either he must +show himself on the stage first or not at all. Finally it was +compromised by presenting them together at the same moment, holding +hands upon the platform. + +Johnson can never see himself in proper perspective. At the Progressive +convention he was more important than Roosevelt. In the Newberry case +his political fortunes were more important than honest primaries. + +Senator Reed of Missouri is possessed of a devil. He is a satirist +turned politician. He has the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift. American life +with its stupidity, its facile optimism, its gullibility, its easy +compromises, its hypocrisy, fills him with rage. His face is shot red +with passion. His voice is angry. He is a defeated idealist left in this +barren generation without an ideal. He might have been led away by the +war as so many were, as Wilson was, into the belief that out of its +sufferings would come a purified and elevated humanity. But Reed is hard +to lead away. Where other men see beauty and hope he searches furiously +for sham. Where other men say cheerfully half a loaf is better than no +bread he puts the half loaf on the scales and proves that it is short +weight. + +An old prosecuting attorney, he believes that guilt is everywhere. He is +always out for a conviction. If the evidence is insufficient he uses all +the arts, disingenuous presentations, appeals to prejudice, not because +he is indifferent to justice but because the accused ought to be hanged +anyway, and he is not going to let lack of evidence stand in the way of +that salutary consummation. + +He conducts a lifelong and passionate fight against the American +practice of "getting away with it." Shall Hoover get away with it as a +great and pure man, the benefactor of the race! Not while Jim Reed has +breath in his body! Here is an American idol, tear it down, exhibit its +clay feet! Shall Wilson "get away with it," with his League of Nations +and his sublimated world set free from all the baser passions of the +past? Not while any acid remains on Jim Reed's tongue! + +Reed is sincere. He hates sham. He nevertheless himself uses sham to +fight sham. He is the nearest thing to a great satirist this country has +developed. And the amazing consideration is that in a nation which +dislikes satire a satirist should be elected by the suffrage of his +fellows. + +Probably it is only in politics that we tolerate satire. In +self-government we only half believe. We are divided in our own minds. +We make laws furiously and laugh at the laws we make. We pretend that +the little men of politics are great and then privately we indicate our +real perception of the truth by telling how small they are. Politics is +suspect and it stamps you as a person of penetration to show that you +are aware what sham and dishonesty there is in them. It is almost as +good an evidence of a superior mind as to say, "Of course I don't +believe what I read in the newspapers." Now satire is enjoyed by +superior minds, and it is only with regard to politics that we as a +people have superior minds, politics not being like business the pursuit +of honest everyday folk. + +Jim Reed is then that part of ourselves which tells us that +self-government is a good deal of a sham, in the hands of amusing +charlatans. We tolerate him in perhaps the only place where we would +tolerate a satirist, in the Senate. And in the Senate they fear him. + +He was attacking the Four Power Pact. "People say," he declared, "that +this ends the Anglo-Japanese alliance. I do not find it in the pact. I +do not find it nominated in the bond," he shouted. And the friends of +the pact sat silent afraid of Reed's power as a debater, until Senator +Lenroot having studied the document several minutes in the cloakroom +read the plain language of the agreement to end the alliance. Reed +almost "got away with it" himself. But this is not leadership. One does +not follow a satirist. One makes him a privileged character at most. + +Reed and Borah are privileged characters each in his own way. The +privilege of being "queer" is as old as the herd itself. The harmless +insane man was almost sacred in primitive society. The "fool" was the +only man whose disrespect did not amount to _lése majesté_. The wisdom +of the "fool" was regarded with a certain awe and admiration. But the +death rate among those who sought this franchise must have been high. +It must be personality which decides who survives and achieves this +license and who does not, a nice capacity for adjustment, a rare sense +of what the crowd will endure. Borah and Reed have it, LaFollette has +not or has not chosen to exercise it. + +George Moore somewhere says that if you can convince a woman that it is +all play, all Pan and nymph, between you and her, you have the perfect +way of a man with a maid, when his aim is something short of matrimony. +But if you are too serious about it--! LaFollette is perhaps too serious +about it. If he could have said what he had to say with a laugh and so +as to raise a laugh he might have been privileged like Reed, or, if he +had to be serious, he should have been serious like Borah, in a detached +and impersonal fashion; then perhaps he might still have been something +less than the public enemy that he is. But LaFollette is serious, +terribly serious, terribly in earnest. He has had convictions, clung to +them, and probably suffered more for them than any man in Washington. + +The Wisconsin Senator is one of the least understood men in public life. +In the Senate he speaks violently, with a harsh voice and an excess of +manner. He is small and some of this loudness and emphasis is no doubt +that compensation for lack of stature and presence to which men +unconsciously resort; some of it is an exterior which has been +cultivated to cover up an unusually shy and sensitive heart. The +character in history and fiction which most intrigues him is Hamlet, +that gentle soul unfit for life. He has spent years studying the shy +Dane. He himself is a Hamlet who has taken up arms against a sea of +troubles. The "queer" man who would gain a franchise for his "queerness" +must not be sensitive. The crowd likes better to persecute than to +tolerate. + +Then too LaFollette entered the Senate when minorities were less +tolerable than they are today. He got the stamp of impossible when +Roosevelt led a movement in his direction and he refused to be a part of +it. Thus he became isolated, neither Progressive nor Old Guard. You can +not safely be too uncompromising, too serious. It makes no difference if +you were right in rejecting both wings of the party as reactionary which +they speedily proved to be. It makes no difference if you were right in +opposing the war, and no one is so sure today that LaFollette was wrong +in doing so as men were when it was proposed to expel him from the +Senate. Justification after the fact does no good. It is not your +wrongness that they hate; it's your uncompromising quality, and that +remains more unbreakable than ever. + +An unusual loyalty explains the unwillingness to compromise. LaFollette +attaches himself deeply. A characteristic act was his leaving the Senate +for months to nurse a sick son back to health. It sets him apart from +most men, who do not let sickness in the family interfere with their +business and perform their full duty when they hire a trained nurse. +People think of LaFollette, the public man, as an egoist but this +nursing of his son showed the utmost absence of egoism. And so it is +with all his intimate relations, which are unusually sweet and tender. + +Whatever he is like privately, publicly he is placed, rated, catalogued; +the general mind is made up. The farm bloc no more turned to him than to +Borah for leadership. He will always remain isolated. + +Now that party discipline has been broken down, what nonconformist +Senators suffer most from is the tyranny of the teapot. Senator Kenyon +referred to it when he said Newberry on trial for fitness for his seat +"floated back into the Senate on an ocean of tea." An unparliamentary +version of the same reference to the social influence is: "The Senate is +one long procession of dinners and hootch." + +If you are regular politically you are regular socially. Given the habit +of voting with the crowd, of putting others at ease by a not too great +display of intellect, a good cook, a pre-war cellar, and a not +impossible wife, and you belong to the Senatorial middle class, the new +rich insurance agents, lawyers, miners, and manufacturers who control +the fate of the socially ambitious. You may not be invited to the +Wadsworths', or may be seldom asked there. But you are accepted by what +Mencken might call the wealthy "booboisie," the circle Mr. Harding +frequented before he was advanced to the White House. + +If you don't you are of the Senatorial proletariat. You are invited out +seldom or not at all. You have to organize a little set of +intellectuals, not found in the Senate, for your wife's tea parties. + +Senator Kenyon was a moderate nonconformist. Intellectually he was +honest, but not strong, so that an outsider might have thought that his +honesty and independence would be overlooked. But he was never accepted +by the "booboisie." He was virtually cold shouldered out of the Senate, +for it was with immense relief that he escaped from teapot ostracism to +the securer social area of the Federal bench. + +I repeat a bit of gossip about the Iowa Senator without vouching for it. +When he was retiring, it is said, a reporter asked, "What can be done +with the Senate?" "Nothing," replied the Iowan, "The only thing to do is +to destroy it." If he said this he really flattered the "booboisie." +Destruction is reserved for wicked things like Sodom and Gomorrah. But +the Senate is not wicked. It is good, honest in the sense of not +stealing, well-meaning, timid, petty, tea-drinking, human, commonplace. +You can't destroy it unless you have something to put in its place, and +there is nothing. Much better turn it over to the blocs and see what +they will do with it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A PEAK OF REALITY THRUSTS UP ON THE LEVEL PLAIN OF SHAMS + + +As well fear blocs and minorities as fear the centrifugal force on the +ground that it is seeking to pull us off the face of the earth. +Minorities are the centrifugal force of politics. They maintain the +balance of forces which makes political existence possible. Without them +the State would become unbearable; it would destroy us or we should be +compelled to destroy it. + +We have just passed through a period, the war, in which minorities were +suppressed, in which the general will brooked no resistance, in which +the bodies of men between certain ages and the minds of men and women of +all ages were brought into compulsory service of the State. The mental +draft dodger went to jail just as much as the physical draft dodger. + +A Chief of an Industrial Workers of the World Longshoremans' Union was +sentenced for twenty years because he was an I. W. W., although under +his direction his organization handled efficiently all the munitions of +war shipped from Philadelphia. He "obstructed the war" by his thoughts +as an I. W. W., even though his actions as a citizen contributed to +success in the war. + +One may tolerate during a national emergency the oppression that results +from the crushing of minorities, but in time of peace it is only in the +balance of political forces that political existence may go on. + +All freedom is the work of minorities and so is all change. Respect for +opinion is dearly bought by them. Majority views were all once minority +views. Some political theorists even go so far as to say that all +governments, no matter what apparent precautions are taken to represent +majorities, are really conducted by minorities. Without the effective +resistance of minorities the general will may become tyrannous or +without the stimulus they afford it may become inert. + +The blocs and minorities that are appearing in American public life are +accomplishing a measure of decentralization. The highly centralized +government which we recently built up is itself passing into the control +of the various economic subdivisions of society. In them rather than in +it is coming to be final authority. + +Take freight rates for an illustration. Originally they were localized, +in the unrestricted control of the railroad managers. Then they were +slightly centralized in the partial control of state and partial +control of national authorities. Then control was wholly centralized in +the Inter-State Commerce Commission at Washington, the States being +denied effective authority even over rates within their own borders. + +There you have bureaucracy at its worst, authority in the hands of an +appointive commission, thousands of miles, in many cases, from the place +where it was applied, and a public feeling its impotence, which is the +negation of self-government. + +Then comes the first step in decentralization. No locality, no State was +big enough to reach out and get back the authority over its own railroad +service that it once had. But the organized farmers of the whole country +were able to take into their hands the power over the railroads as it +affected them. Nominally the Inter-State Commerce Commission still makes +rates. Practically the farmers, having the balance of power in the House +and Senate, say what rates they want on agricultural products and get +them. That is decentralization. + +The division into States which the jealous colonists preserved in +forming the Union has largely lost its significance. Men divide now +according to their interests, not according to boundaries that may be +learned in the school geographies. As the States weakened many of their +powers gradually tended to be centralized in the national government. As +the newer economic subdivisions of society become organized and +self-assertive some of the power thus centralized in Washington +devolves upon them, not legally or formally, but actually and in +practice. They constitute minorities too large to be denied. + +It is only through decentralization that popular institutions can be +kept alive, only through it that government remains near enough to the +people to hold their interest and only through it that freedom from an +oppressive State is preserved. + +Why should minorities be regarded with such aversion? Why should +President Harding declaim against them so persistently? Our Federal +Constitution is written full of safeguards for minorities. The reservoir +of power is in the minorities, the States, the local subdivisions which +feared the loss of their identity and independence through the central +government they were creating. + +Only powers expressly yielded by the local units may be assumed by the +Republic. The States were the minorities; they felt when they joined the +Union that their rights as minorities had to be jealously guarded, in +order that they might have the realities of self-government. + +You have in the rule that the small State must have as many Senators as +the large State a sharp assertion of the right of geographical +minorities. If the larger States had not accepted this principle the +smaller States would never have joined the Union. + +Gradually these geographical minorities lost their importance in the +public consciousness. Our people had come and kept coming to this +country from the ends of the earth. Arriving here they continued to be +nomads, sweeping over the West in search of new pasture lands or more +fertile soil, moving from the farm to the city and thrusting their roots +in nowhere. No difference of language or customs set up arbitrary +frontiers. + +Moreover we were the first people to settle a land where modern methods +of locomotion destroyed the use and wont of limited localities. Instead +of being citizens of New York united with the citizens of New Jersey, +Connecticut, and the rest of them for the common defense, as our +forefathers imagined, we became citizens of the United States, which was +divided into New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the rest for +purposes of policing, road-making, and other functions that could be +better managed at home than from Washington. + +A State began to assume about the same place in the Union that a county +does in a State. + +The basic reality for our forefathers was the State, the Union existing +for the convenience of the States. The basic reality for us is the +Union, the States existing for the convenience of the Union, which is +too vast to administer everything from a central point. + +As the geographical subdivisions lost their significance economic +subdivisions rose to take their place. The farmer of Kansas began to +have more in common with the farmer of Iowa than he had with the coal +miner of his own State. The nationwide organization of farmers resulted, +and it is a more real unit in the political consciousness than is that +unit on which the Fathers laid such stress, the State. It is a minority +that has no reserve rights under the Constitution but which achieves its +rights by force of numbers and organization. + +These economic subdivisions are the reality today. The United States is +a union of the State of Agriculture, the State of Labor, the State of +Manufacturing, and a dozen other occupational States of greater or less +importance. And after all why should not Agriculture, Manufacturing, +Labor, Foreign, and Domestic Commerce form a union for the national +defense, carefully reserving essential powers to themselves as States, +just as the thirteen original colonies did? Why should we let this new +political organism keep us awake nights? + +Nationally we have a complex on the subject of disunion. Fortunate +perhaps is the country which is subject to the pressure of a foreign +enemy on its border, as France is, for example, to that of Germany. If +you have a convenient foe to be afraid of you do not have to be afraid +of yourselves. It seems to be the rule that nations like individuals +must have fears and the American phobia is that this country will +proceed amoeba-wise by scission, into several countries. When we feel +a weakening at the center we feel a horror in the peripheries. + +We fought one great war to prevent a breaking up of the Union and +whenever we hear the word "section," we become apprehensive. And just as +"section" fills our minds with fear of cleavage upon geographical lines, +so "class" arouses anxiety over cleavage upon social lines. "Class" +calls up the spectre of socialism. "Bloc" moreover is a word of unhappy +associations. It brings into the imagination Europe with all its turmoil +and its final catastrophe. + +The Civil War left us with one complex. The European War left us with +another. The agricultural bloc touches both, suggesting division and +upon European lines. Being agricultural it is vaguely sectional; being +the projection of a single interest into national politics so as to cut +across parties, it follows European precedents. It moreover derives its +name from abroad. + +Call it log-rolling by the farmers, however, and it relates to the +habitual method of American legislation. It conforms to our best +traditions. We never spoke of the groups which filled pork barrels of +the past as blocs, but every river and harbor bill was the work of +minorities uniting to raid the treasury. The two recent amendments to +the Constitution, granting the suffrage to women and prohibiting the +manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, were also achieved +minorities. + +The organized minorities of the past dissolved when their end was +obtained. They had a specific rather than a general purpose. Usually it +was a moral purpose, the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, or political +justice for woman. Never until recently did a minority raise the +economic interests of one section of society against those of the rest +of society and promise to keep on raising them. The farm bloc is the +first permanent economic minority to organize itself effectively for +political action. + +The phenomenon is not that the bloc impairs our political system; it +does not; majority rule is always tempered by minority rule or it +becomes either a tyranny or a dead thing. It is that it threatens our +pocketbooks. It obtains low railroad rates on farm products. It shifts +taxes from farmers to the rest of us. It secures for farmers special aid +in the form of government credits. + +Nevertheless its appearance is the most hopeful sign in Washington that +we may emerge from the governmental bog into which we have sunk. We had +centralized to the point of creating an immense and dull bureaucracy +headed by a weak Executive and equally weak Congress. Interest in +self-government was being destroyed by the mere remoteness and +irresponsiveness of the mechanism. "The parties are exactly alike. What +difference does it make which is in power?" + +We had created an organization too vast for any one to take it in hand. +And the only remedy in that case is to break the organization down. +Decentralization into States was impossible, for men never go back to +outworn forms, and State boundaries had ceased to be the real lines of +division in American society. A way out of this difficulty has been +found through the seizing of power by occupational organizations, of +which the farm bloc is the most famous and most successful. + +We could not go on as we are, with an enfeebled Executive and an +enfeebled Congress. And, if I have analyzed the situation correctly, we +shall have no more strong Executives, until some national emergency +unites the people temporarily for the accomplishment of some single +purpose. The Executive is the greatest common divisor of a diverse +society. Congress, equally, is weak so long as it remains a Congress +based upon the present theory of party government, for the party has to +be stretched out too thin, has to represent too many different views to +have character and purpose. Steadily parties are being driven more and +more to pure negation. Wilson was elected the first time on the negative +issue, "No more Roosevelt and his radicalism," and the second time on +the negative issue, "He kept us out of war," and Harding upon the +negative issue, "No more Wilson." + +If the two existing parties cannot be positive and constructive, "Why +not scrap them both?" asks Mr. Samuel G. Blythe. Why not, indeed? +except for the fact that you can find no principle upon which to found a +third party. If there were a positive principle upon which a majority of +the voters would agree the existing parties would grab for it. They are +colorless and negative not by choice but by necessity. + +Let us look at the situation. The public is disgusted with the existing +parties and becoming indifferent to the possibilities of the suffrage +and of popular government, an unhealthy sign. A new party is out of the +question, for to succeed any new party must be broad enough to cover all +sorts and conditions of men, divergent groups and interests. It must at +once have the defects of the old parties. + +So long as parties "must be careful," to quote Mr. Harding, executives +must "be careful" and Congress organized on the party basis "must be +careful." We gravitate toward negation. + +We face in government perhaps what it is said we face in industry and in +war, organization on such a scale that men are no longer masters of it. +Under such circumstances there is nothing to do but to break it up into +its component parts. That is what the group or bloc system is, a +resolution into component parts. + +It is precisely what will happen in the industrial field if the great +combinations of twenty years ago prove too unwieldy. The vertical trust, +the single industry, organized like the Stinnes group or like the Henry +Ford industry from the raw material to the finished product but seeking +no monopoly, promises to take the place of the horizontal trust of +monopolistic tendency. The bloc is a vertical organization appearing in +the field of politics, which hitherto has been dominated by the +horizontal organization of the parties. + +A vertical organization, like everything vertical in this world, tends +to rest upon the solid earth. It has its base in reality. The bloc +introduces reality into public life. It will be represented by men who +are not ashamed to stand frankly for the selfish interests of their +group. + +When we banished selfish interests from the government a few years ago +we banished all interests--and even all interest, too--leaving very +little but hypocrisy and timidity. The representatives of a group will +not have to be all things to all men as our party men are, but only one +thing to one kind of men. + +If we cannot get our present parties to stand for anything, if for the +same reason we cannot form a new party to stand for anything, we can at +least introduce principles into politics through the force of group +support. Blocs will be positive, not merely negative as the parties have +become. They do not have to please everybody. They can and must be +constructive. + +The clash of ideas which we miss between parties may take place between +blocs. I am assuming, as everyone in Washington does, that the farm +bloc is only a forerunner of other similar political efforts, for every +economic interest which is organized among the voters may extend itself +vertically into Congress. + +There will be a gain in decentralization, there will be a gain in +honesty, there will be a gain in constructive political effort through +the direct representation of the real interests of society in Congress. + +Nor does there appear any danger of the break up into utterly unrelated +minorities such as has taken place, let us say, in France and Germany. +We have what most European countries has not, an elected Executive who +plays an important part in legislation, the President with his veto +power. So long as the presidential office retains this function, and it +is always likely to retain it, there must be national parties within +which the minorities, interests, or occupational groups, must coöperate. + +Groups will not be able in this country as in Europe to elect members of +the national legislature independently, then form a combination and pick +their own Executive. They are under compulsion to elect the Executive at +large by the votes of the whole people; they must hold together enough +for that purpose. + +The centrifugal tendency of minorities in the American system is thus +effectively restrained. Groups must work within the parties, as the +agricultural bloc has done and as the proposed liberal workers bloc +promises to do. A handful of seats in Congress alone is not worth +fighting for: that is why all third party movements have failed. A +handful of seats in a European parliament is worth having; it may +dictate the choice of the Executive; that is why parties are numerous +abroad. In other words "bloc" is a useful name as indicating a radical +departure in our political system but it contains no threat for this +country of the political disintegration prevailing in Europe. + +The names Republican and Democrat are likely to last as convenient +designations of the accord reached for national purposes between the +vertical organizations which represent economic or other group interests +of the people. Unity is thus preserved as well as diversity, which is +what upon geographical lines, the Father of the Constitution sought. + +You have only to regard the agricultural bloc to perceive the truth of +this analysis. Primarily its members are Republicans or Democrats and +only secondarily representatives of agriculture. They have rejected +leadership of a separatist tendency, choosing the moderate guidance of +Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Capper rather than the more individualistic +generalship of Mr. Borah or Mr. La Follette. Some day their successors +may be primarily representatives of agriculture and only secondarily +Republicans or Democrats, but in one of the two big parties they must +retain their standing, or share the fate of third parties, a fate +made inevitable by the necessity electing of a chief executive at +large. + +[Illustration: SENATOR ARTHUR I CAPPER OF KANSAS] + +When the farmer votes for legislators who will represent primarily the +farm interest, and the laborer for legislators who will represent +primarily the labor interest and the business man for legislators who +will represent the business interests self-government will assume a new +importance, even though all of these interests will have to be +subordinated to the general interest for the sake of coöperation with a +party in the choice of an Executive. + +I have compared the group organization to the vertical trust of the +industrial world. The resemblance is striking. Take the instance of Herr +Stinness, the most interesting figure in manufacturing today. Originally +he was a coal mine owner. Instead of spreading laterally to monopolize +coal he builds upward from his raw material to finished products. He +adds iron to his holdings and manufactures electrical supplies and +electricity. He owns his own ships for the carrying of his products. He +would buy railroads from the German government for the transporting of +them. He owns newspapers for political action. And the whole +organization culminates with himself in the Reichstag, and in +international relations where he is almost as significant a figure as +the German government itself. + +Mr. Henry Ford, a lesser person, started at the other end and organized +downward to the raw material. He now owns his own mines, his railroads +for shipping, his raw material and products, his steel foundries, the +factories which turn out his finished products, his weekly newspaper, +and he is himself a political figure of no one yet knows how much +importance. + +The farmers are organized for social purposes, for the distribution of +information among themselves, for coöperation in buying and selling, for +maintaining a lobby at Washington and finally for political action. +Political action crowns an organization which serves all the purposes +for which union is required. + +Practically every other interest is organized to the point of +maintaining a lobby at Washington. Only the farmers have developed +organization in Congress. Only they have adapted their organization to +all their needs, social and political. Only they have the perfect +vertical trust running straight up from the weekly entertainment in the +union or bureau to the Senate in Washington, where their Senators do the +bidding of their agent, Mr. Gray Silver. + +Indispensable to effective special interest representation seems to be +an organization for other than political purposes which brings the +voters of a class or occupation together. Labor has such an organization +in its unions. Business has it perhaps in its Chambers of Commerce and +Boards of Trade. Either of them has the means at its disposal for +imitating the farmers and developing a bloc in the national legislature. + +It is natural that the farm interest should be the first to push its way +beyond the lobby or propaganda stage at Washington to that of organized +representation on the floor of Congress. Agriculture is the single +interest or the immensely predominating interest in many States. A +Senator or Representative from such a state may safely consider himself +a representative of agriculture. But in a more fully developed community +there is a diversity of interests. Where there is capital there is also +labor. Moreover most of the industrial States have also their +agricultural interest. It is not safe for an Eastern Senator or +Representative, as the situation now stands, to identify himself with +any minority. He must at least pretend to "represent the whole people." + +If the vertical movement in politics proceeds, as it almost inevitably +must, it will manifest itself effectively first in the lower house. +Congress districts are small units. In an industrial State one district +may be prevailingly agricultural, another prevailingly labor, another +prevailingly commercial. Groups operating within a party will tend to +parcel out the districts among themselves holding their support of each +other's candidates, as the Liberal and Labor parties have often done in +England. + +The Senate will be less responsive. States are large units and, except +in farming regions, are not prevailingly of one interest. But a division +may be effected like that which now gives one Senator to the eastern and +another to the western, or one to the urban and another to the rural +part of the State. One Senator may go to business and another to +agriculture or to labor as the case may be. + +What I have just written is by way of illustration. I have spoken of +agricultural, labor and business blocs not because these are the only +divisions of society that may be organized for political purpose but +because they already have the basic machinery and seem certain to thrust +upwards till they are prominently represented in Congress. Other +minority interests are already showing themselves, as for example the +soldiers of the late war and the inland waterways group. These and +others like them, some permanent and some temporary, will cut across the +main subdivisions, so that men who are divided on one interest will be +united on another and thus furnish a further cement in the body politic +in addition to the necessity of joint action upon the presidency. + +Thus there is less danger of our being ruled by minorities than there is +of minorities having to surrender too much of their purposes for the +sake of unity among themselves and of our thus being in spite of their +organization little better off than we are now, reduced by the sheer +mass that has to be moved to a policy of inaction and negation. + +In an earlier chapter I analyzed the Senate to show how weak and +will-less it is and how inferior is its personnel, how prostrate it lies +before any powerful minority which has a purpose and the will to carry +it out. I used the Senate as typical of Congress; a desire to save space +and to avoid repetitions kept me from a similar study of the House. In +the same way the parties lie ready for the uses of minorities. They are +will-less. They have no aim and express no unity because when the old +pioneer will to exploit as quickly as possible the national resources +without regard to waste, physical or social, ceased to operate, there +was no unity, except, as I have explained, for temporary purposes, for +social defense under Roosevelt and for national defense under Wilson, +two essentially negative ends. + +Mr. Will H. Hays trying to tell the Republican senate how to vote on the +League covenant, was a less powerful figure than was Mr. Wayne B. +Wheeler ordering it to vote that more than one half of one per cent of +alcohol in a beverage was intoxicating, or Mr. Gray Silver forcing it to +extend credits to farmers, or Colonel Taylor frightening it into voting +for a soldiers' bonus. + +The old party bosses are dead. No machine leader will control as many +delegates in the next national convention as will Mr. Gray Silver. So +far as delegates are now led they are led by Senators and +Representatives. A Senate group chose Mr. Harding at Chicago. And +Senators and Representatives lie at the mercy of organized minorities. + +The Republican party in 1920 was an agglomeration of minorities, held +together by no better binder than the negation of Wilsonism. There were +the German vote, the Irish vote and the other foreign votes; the farmer +vote, the business vote, the old American vote, the frightened vote, the +herd vote and every conceivable kind of vote. It was in effect a bloc, +in the European sense of that word, a combination of small parties. +These minorities were mostly unorganized in 1920 or imperfectly +organized; their development vertically is now going on. Some of them +will appear as definitely upon the floor of the 1924 convention as the +agricultural group has upon the floor of Congress. + +With the organization of minorities Congress becomes important, for it +is in Congress that the Fathers in their wisdom provided for the +expression of minorities. The Presidency, according to the argument used +before in this book, dwindles to a charming embodiment of that great +American negative--nationwide public opinion. The only ordinarily +available positive--group opinion--finds its play in the Legislature. +There will be determined upon whose shoulders the taxes will be shifted, +who shall have effective rebates in freight rates, and more important +still, who shall use for his group interests the government control of +credit. Where these questions are being decided there public +attention will concentrate. There will be the stress upon government. + +[Illustration: GREY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC] + +As Congress becomes more important better men will be drawn into it. +There will be a gain to public life in this country from emphasis upon +the parliamentary side of government. As it is now only one prize in +American politics is worth while and that is the Presidency. And there +is no known rule by which men may attain to it. Candidates for it are +chosen at random, from governing a State, from an obscure position in +the Senate, from the army, it may be; in no case does it come as the +certain reward of national service. + +And if, as happened when Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson were made +President, really able men attain the office, they may serve their +country only four years, or eight years at most, and then must retire +from view. In England, for example, similar men are at the head of the +government or leading the opposition for the greater part of a lifetime. +English public life would inevitably look richer than ours even were it +not richer, for when they breed a statesman in England they use him for +years. We discard him after four or eight years. We have not the system +for developing statesmen and when by chance we find one we waste him. + +We put our faith in the jack-of-all-trades and the amateur. We have the +cheerful notion that the "crisis produces the man." This is nothing +more than the justice illusion which is lodged in the minds of men, an +idea, religious in its origin, that no time of trial would arrive unless +the man to meet it were benignantly sent along with it, a denial of +human responsibility, an encouragement to the happy-go-lucky notion that +everything always comes out right in the end. + +The world, in going through the greatest crisis in history has +controverted this cheerful belief, for it has not produced "the man" +either here or elsewhere. No one appeared big enough to prevent the war. +No one appeared big enough to shorten the war. No one appeared big +enough to effect a real peace. And no one appeared big enough to guide +this country wisely either in the war or in the making of peace, which +is still going on. + +Only in parliamentary life is there enough permanency and enough +opportunity for the breeding of statesmen. We shall never have them +while the Presidency with its hazards and its wastes is stressed as it +has been in recent years. + +And Congress itself must be reformed before it will encourage and +develop ability. The seniority rule, to which reference has been made +before, must be abolished before talent will have its opportunity in the +legislative branch. + +One of the first things that aggressive minorities would be likely to do +is to reach out for the important committee chairmanships. Already the +seniority rule has been broken in the House, when Martin Madden was +made Chairman of the Appropriations Committee instead of the senior +Republican, an inadequate person from Minnesota. + +And in any case the seniority rule will be severely tested in the +Senate. If Senator McCumber is defeated in North Dakota and Senator +Lodge is defeated or dies, Senator Borah will be in line to be chairman +of the important Foreign Relations Committee. When Senator Cummins, who +is sick, dies or retires and Senator Townsend is defeated, which now +seems likely, Senator LaFollette will be in line to be chairman of the +Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. Both irregulars will then +attain places of vast power unless the seniority rule is abrogated. + +Thus even the machine in the Senate will soon be under pressure to do +away with the absurd method of awarding mere length of service with +power and place. + +Minorities when they determine to take the Senate and the House out of +the enfeebled grasp of incompetent regularity will inevitably find +precedents already established for them. + +A richer public life will come from the breakdown of the safeguards of +mediocrity and from the stressing of the legislative at the expense of +the executive branch of the government. Both these results are likely to +follow from the effective appearance of minority interests in Congress. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE HAPPY ENDING + + +I have hesitated a long time over writing this last chapter, because of +the natural desire to give to my book a happy ending. + +One may write critically of America and things American, but only if one +ends in a mood of hopeful confidence. There is so much youth, so much +latent power here, that one cannot fail to have faith that the spirit of +man will gain some enlargement from the experiment in living which we +are carrying on in this country. + +And even if that were not true, egotism requires us to believe that we +are ever going forward to better things; for how should "the forces" +have the effrontery to establish so splendid a people as ourselves upon +so rich a continent, while reserving for us nothing but a commonplace +career, that of one of the many peoples who have from time to time +occupied the fairer regions of the earth? + +At least we shall fill a place in history alongside Greece and Rome; we +feel it as the imaginative young man feels in himself the stirrings of +a future Shakespeare, Napoleon, or Lincoln. + +The human mind refuses to conceive of so much power coming to ordinary +ends. The justice illusion which men have found so indispensable a +companion on their way through time requires the happy ending. As it is +only right and fair that when the forces send us a crisis they should +send us a man equal to it, so it is only right and fair that when they +put so great a people as ourselves in the world they should prepare for +it a splendid destiny. + +I subscribe heartily to this doctrine. It is as convincing as any I have +ever seen based on the theory which we all cheerfully accept, that man +is not master of his own fate, that he does not need to be, that he had +better not be, that he reaps where he does not sow, reaps, indeed, +abundant crops. + +In the preceding chapter, working toward the happy ending, I have +brought my characters to the verge of felicity: the perfect union +between minorities and majorities, which is the aim of all social order, +is in sight. + +I have based my minorities upon self-interest, thus introducing into our +government the selfish interests banished therefrom twenty years ago. +Their banishment was an achievement of virtue. Their reintroduction is +the accomplishment of good sense. They are the great reality while the +world thinks as it does. + +Since someone somewhere, in a treatise on economics probably, penned +the phrase "enlightened self-interest," we have all more or less become +enamored of the idea that wisdom--enlightenment--reposes in the bosom of +selfishness. Justice requires that wisdom should be somewhere. The +reasoning runs like this. The world cannot get on without wisdom. +Justice demands that the world should get on. Therefore there is wisdom +in the world. We know it is not in ourselves or in our neighbors. We +feel, therefore, that it must be in the bosom of perfect selfishness. +And as we cast our eyes about us we think we know where the bosom of +perfect selfishness is, and we feel assured. + +Sometimes, of course, we place it in the heads of all mankind, it being +a thing that no one man has and no few men have, but which is one of +those mysterious properties of the aggregate which does not inhere in +the individuals composing the aggregate; a sort of colloidal element +that comes from shaking men up together, though all are without it +before the mixing and shaking. + +Some would place it, as Mr. Wilson seems to in a famous passage on +minorities, in the breasts of the enlightened few. When the few +disagreed with him, he threw them and their wisdom in jail. + +But wherever it is, it is sure to be found in a system which preserved +the old parties representing the general mind of the country along with +the new vertical political organizations, representing the minorities, +thrusting up like volcanoes upon the placid plane of politics that Mr. +Harding once delighted to survey. + +You have in this combination the spontaneous wisdom of the masses, if +that is where wisdom generates. You have the wisdom of the few, if you +believe in impregnation from above, and you have the wisdom of +selfishness, if you believe as most of us do in the enlightenment of +self-interest. And no one ever located wisdom anywhere else than in +these three places, for the first, as I might easily demonstrate, is the +modern democratic name for the wisdom of God; the second is the wisdom +of men; and the third is the wisdom of the serpent; beside which there +are no other wisdoms. + +This you will admit is moving rapidly and without reserve toward the +happy ending. But I think every writer of a novel has stuck his tongue +in his cheek as he wrote those benedictory words, "And they lived happy +ever after." And I stick my tongue in my cheek as I think of Mr. Gray +Silver, the effective director of the farmers' vertical political trust +sitting in the Senate, leading it perhaps in place of Senator Lodge of +Massachusetts. + +To Mr. Lodge's petulant, imperious gesture--the sharp handclap for the +pages--would succeed Mr. Silver's fixing gesture, that of a country +merchant smoothing out a piece of silk before a customer at a counter. +Mr. Silver as he talks performs one constant motion, a gentle slow +moving of both hands horizontally, palms down. + +Mr. Silver is a lobbyist with the powers of a dictator, or a dictator +with the habits of a lobbyist, whichever way you wish to look at it. A +former farmer, member of the West Virginia legislature, representative +of farm organizations at Washington, he rules the Senate with more power +than Mr. Lodge has or Mr. Harding has, but always with the gentle touch +of a general-storekeeper, spreading the wrinkles out of a yard of satin. + +But even this little lobbyist has a certain definiteness which public +men generally lack. His feet are firmly placed upon reality. He speaks +for a solid body of opinion. He is a positive rather than a negative +force. He represents a fairly united minority which knows what it wants, +and men are strong or weak according as they are or are not spokesmen of +a cause; and the selfish interest of a group easily takes on the pious +aspect of a cause. + +It is always better to deal with principals than with agents. Gray +Silver, Colonel John H. Taylor, the Apollo of the soldiers' bonus lobby, +perfect ladies' man in appearance, who is full of zeal also for a cause, +that of those who did not make money out of the war and who should in +common justice make it all the rest of their lives out of the peace, and +Wayne B. Wheeler, the fanatic leader of the drys, are all more real men +than those who do their bidding in the Senate and the House. + +No, if I put my tongue in my cheek as I write the words "lived happy +ever after," it is because I see only a measure of improvement in the +freeing of men from existing political conventions which will come from +the effective emergence of minorities. A richer public life will result +from increased vitality of the legislative branch. But a rich public +life, no; for that requires men. You cannot fashion it out of Lodges, +Watsons, Curtises, Gillettes, Mondells, Hardings, Hugheses, and Hoovers, +or even Gray Silvers, Taylors, or Wheelers. + +And we do not breed men in this country. If the test of a civilization +is an unusually high average of national comfort, achieved in a land of +unparalleled resources, whose exploitation was cut off from interruption +by foreign enemies, then this experiment in living which we have been +conducting in America has been a great success; if it is a further +freeing of the human spirit, such as finds its expression in the rare +individuals who make up the bright spots in all past human history, then +its success is still to be achieved. + +Many blame the dullness and general averageness which afflicts us upon +democracy. There is democracy and there is timidity and stupidity; there +is the appeal to low intelligence; the compulsion to be a best seller +rests upon us all. _Post hoc propter hoc._ + +I am going to blame it upon the mistake Euclid made in his theorem about +two parallel lines. This was an error of Euclid's, modern mathematics +proves, unless you assume space to be infinite. Having committed +ourselves to Euclid, we committed ourselves to a space that was +infinite. Space being regarded as infinite, man was little, relatively. + +Euclid having made his mistake about the parallels, it followed +inevitably that Mr. Harding should be little. + +I use Mr. Harding only by way of illustration. You may fill any other +name you like of the Washington gallery into that statement of +inevitability and do it no violence. And this very interchangeability of +names suggests that you must go further back than democracy to find the +cause of today's sterility. + +Besides, we have had infinite space, in our minds; but have we ever had +democracy there? De Gourmont writes that no religion ever dies, but it +rather lives on in its successor. Similarly, no form of government ever +dies; it survives in its successor. A nation does not become a democracy +by writing on a bit of paper, "resolved that we are a democracy, with a +government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches +chosen by majority vote." + +Government, however organized, is what exists in the minds of the +people, and in that mind is stored up a dozen superstitions, handed down +from primitive days, gathering force from time to time as new names are +given to them and new "scientific" bases are found for them. + +We laugh at the divine right of kings, but we could not accept +self-government without bestowing on it an element of divinity. We have +the divine right of Public Opinion. We can hardly print these words +without the reverence of capital letters. The founders of modern +democracy knew there could be no government without a miraculous +quality. Formerly one mere man by virtue of ruling became something +divine. The miracle grew difficult to swallow. You could regard this one +man and see that he was a fool and had too many mistresses. He was the +least divine-looking thing that could be imagined. Very well then, put +the divine quality into something remote. All men by virtue of ruling +themselves became divine. + +An immense inertia develops between theoretical self-government and the +practical reluctance of humanity to be governed by anything short of the +heavenly hosts. I don't know whether this reluctance springs from racial +modesty, the feeling that man is not good enough to govern himself, or +from racial egotism, the belief that nothing is too good to govern him; +but it is a great reality. The little men at Washington are will-less in +the conflict. + +To overcome this inertia, minorities whose interests cannot wait upon +the slow benevolent processes of determinism or upon the divine +rightness of public opinion, form to prod the constitutional organs of +government into action. Mr. Gray Silver, the silk smoother, and Mr. +Wayne B. Wheeler, the Puritan fanatic, are both just as much parts of +the government as is Mr. Harding. So, too, is every one of the hundred +and more lobbies which issue publicity at Washington. We recognize this +plurality of our institutions in our common speech. We refer habitually +to the "invisible government," to "government by business," to "party +government," to "government by public opinion." We have little but +inertia, except as outside pressure is applied to it. + +The little men at Washington live in all this confusion of an +excessively plural government. They are pushed hither and yon by all +these forces, organized and unorganized, mental and physical, real and +imaginary, that inhibit and impel self-government. They lean heavily +upon parties only to find parties bending beneath their weight. They +yield to blocs and lobbies. They watch publicity and put out their own +publicity to counteract it. + +Like the ministers of crowned fools, they gull the present embodiment of +divine right and cringe before it. They are everything but the effective +realization of a democratic will. + +All this sounds as if I were getting far from my happy ending, and you +begin to see me asking the old question, "Is democracy a failure?" But +no, it is too soon to ask it. Wait a thousand years until democracy has +had a real chance. A revolution--no really optimistic prognosis can be +written which does not have the world revolution in it--a revolution +will have to take place in men's minds before this is a democracy. + +I would absolve myself from the taboo of this word. Property is a grand +form of clothes. A property revolution, such as the Socialists +recommend, would be little more important in setting men's minds free +for self-government, than would putting women in trousers be in setting +women's minds free for the achievement of sex equality. + +Some German--I think it was Spengler--writing about some "Niedergang," I +think it was of western civilization--all Germans like to write about +Niedergangs--demonstrated that every new civilization starts with a new +theory of the universe, of space and time. That is, it starts with a +real revolution. + +Well, then, here is the true happy ending; Einstein is giving us a new +theory of the universe, knocking the mathematical props from under +infinity, teaching us that man largely fashions the world out of his own +mind. + +Man again tends to become what the old Greek radical called him, "The +measure of all things." Once he is, and it will take a long time for him +to admit that he is, there may be a real chance for democracy and for +the emergence of great individuals, who are after all the best evidence +of civilization. + +You see the happy ending is Einstein and not the farm bloc. + +Meanwhile we have the farm bloc, one sign of vitality amid much +deadness, a reassertion of the principle which the Fathers of the +Constitution held, that there must be room for the play of minorities in +our political system. + + + + +END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Behind the Mirrors, by Clinton W. 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Gilbert + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Behind the Mirrors + The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington + +Author: Clinton W. Gilbert + +Release Date: February 10, 2012 [EBook #38819] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEHIND THE MIRRORS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>PRESIDENT WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>BEHIND THE MIRRORS</h1> + +<h2>THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISINTEGRATION AT WASHINGTON</h2> + +<h2>By the Author of "The Mirrors of Washington"</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i13">Le métier superieur de la critique, ce<br /></span> +<span class="i12">n'est pas même, comme le proclamait<br /></span> +<span class="i12">Pierre Bayle, de semer des doubtes;<br /></span> +<span class="i12">il faut aller plus loin, il faut détruire.<br /></span> +<span class="i18"><span class="smcap">De Gourmont</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="center"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></p> + +<p class="center">G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br /> +NEW YORK AND LONDON<br /> +The Knickerbocker Press<br /> +1922</p> + +<p class="center">Copyright, 1922<br /> +by<br /> + +G. P. Putnam's Sons</p> + +<p class="center">Made in the United States of America</p> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + + +<p>"A book like the <i>Mirrors of Downing Street</i> is well enough. It is the +fashion to be interested in English notables. But that sort of thing +won't do here. The American public gets in the newspapers all it wants +about our national politicians. That isn't book material."</p> + +<p>An editor said that just a year ago when we told him of the plan for the +<i>Mirrors of Washington</i>. And, frankly, it seemed doubtful whether +readers generally cared enough about our national political +personalities to buy a book exclusively concerned with them.</p> + +<p>But they did. The <i>Mirrors of Washington</i> became an instantaneous +success. It commanded almost unprecedented attention. It was heartily +damned and vociferously welcomed. By the averagely curious citizen, +eager for insight behind the gilded curtains of press-agentry and +partisanship, it was hailed as a shaft of common-sense sunlight thrown +into a clay-footed wilderness of political pap. And close to one hundred +thousand copies were absorbed by a public evidently genuinely interested +in an uncensored analysis of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> people who are running us, or ruining +us, as individual viewpoint may determine.</p> + +<p>The <i>Mirrors of Washington</i> was by way of being a pioneer, at least for +America. Overseas, it is habitual enough to exhibit beneath the literary +microscope the politically great and near-great, and even to dissect +them—often enough without anæsthesia. To our mind, such critical +examination is healthily desirable. Here in America, we are +case-hardened to the newspapers, whose appraisal of political personages +is, after all, pretty well confined to the periods of pre-election +campaigning. And we are precious little influenced by this sort of +thing; the pro papers are so pro, and the anti papers so anti, that few +try to determine how much to believe and how much to dismiss as routine +partisan prevarication.</p> + +<p>But a book! Political criticism, and personality analyses, frozen into +the so-permanently-appearing dignity of a printed volume—that is +something else again! Even a politician who dismisses with a smile or a +shrug recurrent discompliments in the news columns or the anonymous +editorial pages of the press, is tempted to burst into angry protest +when far less bitter, far more balanced criticism of himself is voiced +in a book. A phenomenon, that, doubtless revisable as time goes on and +the reflections of more book-bound Mirrors brighten the eyes of those +who read and jangle the nerves of those who run—for office.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Behind the Mirrors</i> is another such book. It delves into the +fundamentals at Washington. It is concerned with political tendencies as +well as political personalities. It presents what impresses us as a +genuinely useful and brilliant picture of present-day governmental +psychology and functioning. It is a cross section of things as they are.</p> + +<p>The picture behind the mirrors is not as pretty as it might be. Probably +the way to make it prettier is to let ample light in upon it so that the +blemishes, discerned, may be rectified; and to impress those responsible +for its rehabilitation with the necessity of taking advantage of the +opportunities that are theirs.</p> + +<p>When President Eliot of Harvard presented to a certain Senator an +honorary degree, he described with inimitable charm and considerable +detail that Senator's literary achievements; and then he mentioned his +political activities, ending with substantially these words: "A man with +great opportunities for public service still inviting him."</p> + +<p>The invitation yet holds good. Acceptances are still in order.</p> + +<p class="right">G. P. P.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">New York</span>,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">June, 1922.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td>CHAPTER </td><td> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">I.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">President Harding and the Clock. God's Time as it was in the +American Political Consciousness</span> </a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">God's Time as it is; an Ingersoll that Requires Much Winding</span> </a></td><td align="right">21</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Golden Words Turn to Brass</span> </a></td><td align="right">36</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">The Super-President Goes Down in the General Smash</span> </a></td><td align="right">61</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Looking for Ultimate Wisdom—in the Bosom of Thérèse</span> </a></td><td align="right">80</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Shall We Find our Salvation Sitting, Like Mr. Mellon, on a Pile of +Dollars</span> </a></td><td align="right">101</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">The Bottle Neck of the Cabinet, and What is in the Bottle</span> </a></td><td align="right">119</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">The Greatest Common Divisor of Much Littleness</span> </a></td><td align="right">142</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IX.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Congress at Last with Something to Do has no one to Do it</span> </a></td><td align="right">156<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">X.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Interlude. Introducing a Few Members of the Upper House Booboisie +and Some Others</span> </a></td><td align="right">173</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XI.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">A Peak of Reality Thrusts up on the Level Plain of Shams</span> </a></td><td align="right">204</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XII.—</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">The Happy Ending</span> </a></td><td align="right">226</td></tr> + +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<table width="100%"> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus1"><span class="smcap">President Warren Gamaliel Harding</span> </a></td><td align="right"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus2"><span class="smcap">Uncle Sam's Conference</span> </a></td><td align="right">26</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus3"><span class="smcap">Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming</span> </a></td><td align="right">44</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus4"><span class="smcap">Lord Riddell</span> </a></td><td align="right">96</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus5"><span class="smcap">Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury</span> </a></td><td align="right">112</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus6"><span class="smcap">Arthur Balfour</span> </a></td><td align="right">130</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus7"><span class="smcap">Attorney-General H. M. Daugherty</span> </a></td><td align="right">138</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus8"><span class="smcap">Senator James E. Watson of Indiana</span> </a></td><td align="right">160</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus9"><span class="smcap">Representative Frederick H. Gillett of Massachusetts</span> </a></td><td align="right">166</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus10"><span class="smcap">Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey</span> </a></td><td align="right">180</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus11"><span class="smcap">Senator Harry S. New of Indiana</span> </a></td><td align="right">188</td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#illus12"><span class="smcap">Senator James W. Wadsworth of New York</span> </a></td><td align="right">190</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus13"><span class="smcap">Senator William M. Calder of New York</span> </a></td><td align="right">192</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus14"><span class="smcap">Senator Arthur I. Capper of Kansas</span> </a></td><td align="right">216</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#illus15"><span class="smcap">Gray Silver, the Man Behind the Farm Bloc</span> </a></td><td align="right">222</td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>BEHIND THE MIRRORS</h2> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>PRESIDENT HARDING AND THE CLOCK. GOD'S TIME AS IT WAS IN THE AMERICAN +POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS</h3> + + +<p>President Harding had recently to decide the momentous question whether +we should have daylight saving in Washington. He decided it in a +perfectly characteristic way, perfectly characteristic of himself and of +our present political division and unsureness. He ruled that the city +should go to work and quit work an hour earlier, but that it should not +turn back the hands of the clock, should not lay an impious finger upon +God's Time.</p> + +<p>That this straddle is typical of our President needs no argument—he +"has to be so careful," as he once pathetically said—but that it is +symptomatic of the present American political consciousness perhaps +needs elucidation.</p> + +<p>The clock is one of the problems left to us by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> the Great War, one of +the innumerable problems thus left to us; it involves our whole attitude +toward men and things.</p> + +<p>It represents, rather literally, Mechanism. In the war we adopted +perforce the creed that man was sufficiently master of his own destiny +to adapt Mechanism to his own ends; he could lay a presumptuous hand +upon God's Time. But in peace shall he go on thus boldly? Or shall he +revert to the good old days, the days of McKinley, when the clock was +sacred? Think of all the happiness, all the prosperity, that was ours, +all the duty done and all the destiny abundantly realized, before man +thought to lay a hand upon the clock!</p> + +<p>The question what the limits to human government are is involved. What +may man attempt for himself and what should he leave to the great +Mechanism which has, upon the whole, run the world so well, to the Sun +in its courses, to progress, to inevitability? After all the clock was +in the beginning, is now and ever shall be—unless we meddle with +it—and before its cheerful face America was built from a wilderness +into a vast nation, creating wealth, so as to be the third historic +wonder of the ages—the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was +Rome, the dollars that are America.</p> + +<p>And not only are we divided as to the limits of government, but where +shall Mr. Harding look for authority to guide him with respect to +clocks?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> To his party? This is a party government, you remember. But his +party speaks with no clear voice about clocks or about anything else. To +business? Business has only one rule—more clocks in government and less +government in clocks. But business bows to the public. To public opinion +then? The public is divided about clocks; we tend to grow class +conscious about clocks. And clamorously amid all these authorities is +heard the voice of the Farm Bloc exclaiming: "Don't touch God's Time."</p> + +<p>So it is decided that Washington may save daylight and save the clock +too, a double saving, a most happy compromise. If all questions touching +Mechanism could only be solved in the direction of such splendid +economies!</p> + +<p>I listened a year ago to a most unusual Fourth of July oration. The +speaker, like most of us in this period of breakup following the Great +War, was rather bewildered. He had, moreover, his private reasons for +feeling that life was not easily construed. An illness, perhaps mortal, +afflicted him. Existence had been unclouded until this last cloud came; +why was it to end suddenly and without reason? He had gone through the +Great War a follower of Mr. Wilson's, to see the world scoffing at the +passionate faith it had professed a few months before and sneering at +the leaders it had then exalted. He had echoing in his mind the fine war +phrases, "Brotherhood of Man," "War<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> to End War," "We must be just even +to those to whom we do not wish to be just." Then some monstrous hand +had turned the page and there was Harding, just as in his own life all +success at the bar and in politics, and the joy of being lord of a vast +country estate that had been patented in his family since colonial +times, had suddenly come to an end; the page had turned.</p> + +<p>So this is what he said, in a voice that rose not much above a whisper, +"I have told them where to dig a hole and put me, out here on my +pleasant place. I don't know what it means. I don't believe it has any +meaning. The only thing to do is to laugh. You have trouble laughing? +Look about you and you will find plenty to laugh at. Look at your +President and laugh. Look at your Supreme Court and laugh. Not one of +them knows whether he is coming or going. Everything for the moment has +lost its meaning for everyone. If you can't laugh at anything else, just +think how many angels there are who are blank blanks and how many blank +blanks there are who are angels ... and laugh."</p> + +<p>The Comic Spirit looking down from some cool distance sees something +like what this lawyer saw. It sees President Harding and the Ku Klux +Klan. The connection between President Harding and the Ku Klux Klan? The +Comic Spirit, perceiving everything, perceives that too. For it Mr. +Harding is but the pious manifestation of a sentiment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> which the Ku +Klux Klan is the unconscious and serviceable parody, that instinctive +rush of a people with the world breaking up about it, to seek safety in +the past. Men always shrink thus backward when facing an uncertain +future, just as in moments of great peril they become children again, +call "Mother!" and revert to early practices at her knee. It is one of +the most intelligent things the human race ever does. It is looking +before you leap: the race has no choice but to leap; it draws back to +solid ground in the past for a better take-off into the future. Mr. +Harding represents solid ground, McKinley and the blessed nineties, the +days before men raised a presumptuous hand against the clock.</p> + +<p>If utterly in earnest and determined to revive that happy period, you +clothe yourself in that garment which evokes the assured past, the +blessed nineties, the long white night shirt; the long white night shirt +supplemented by the black mask and the tar brush shall surely save you.</p> + +<p>The Comic Spirit looking about largely, like our Fourth of July orator, +sees in Mr. Harding a wise shrinking into the safety of the past and in +Mr. William H. Taft, our new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at once +a regard for the past and an eye for the future. Can anyone tell whether +Mr. Justice Taft is coming or going, as this Fourth of July speaker +asked? He comes and he goes, and like the wind man knows not whence he +cometh or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> whither he goeth. He is forward looking—when he is not +backward looking. Like Zekle,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He stands a while on one foot fust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Then stands a while on t'other;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on which one he feels the wust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He can not tell you nuther."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Glance at his public career. He stood upon his future foot with +Roosevelt, the chosen executor of "My Policies." A little later he +stands upon his past foot, alongside of Aldrich and Cannon, doing the +works of perdition and bringing on the battle of Armageddon. Again you +find him standing on his future foot beside Mr. Frank P. Walsh in the +War Labor Board, ranging himself with Mr. Walsh in practically all the +close decisions. Again you see him when all the fine forward looking of +the war was over, scurrying from the Russian revolution as fast as +President Wilson or all the rest of us. And once more on his future foot +with Mr. Wilson for the League of Nations and on his past foot with +President Harding against the League of Nations.</p> + +<p>Let us be Freudian and say that the unconscious political self of the +whole nation is responsible for the selection of Mr. Harding and Mr. +Taft. As we shrink back into the past we are aware that it is for the +take-off into the future, and so we have Mr. Taft. We both eat our cake +and have it in the new Chief Justice.</p> + +<p>The United States, like Zekle, is "standing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> while on one foot fust, +then standing a while on t'other," moving forward or backward. But not +for long, too large and secure to be permanently cautious, with too much +well-being to be permanently bold, thinking, but with a certain +restraining contempt for thought, instinctive rather than intellectual. +Vast, eupeptic, assimilative, generous, adaptable, the Chief Justice +typifies the American people in its more permanent characteristics.</p> + +<p>Mr. Harding as President, Mr. Taft as Chief Justice, the agricultural +bloc, the enfeebled Congress, the one million or so Democratic majority +which becomes in four years a seven-million Republican majority, are +only manifestations. The reality is the man, many millions strong, whose +mental state produces the symptoms at Washington. It will be profitable +to examine the content of his mind as it was in those days before +momentous decisions had to be made about daylight saving, and as it is +today when he hesitates between saving daylight and saving the clock, +and perhaps decides to save both.</p> + +<p>I can not better describe his political consciousness as it was than by +saying that it contained three governments—the government of the clock, +the government of the clock-winders, and the government of those who +lived by the clock as religiously minded by the clock-winders. It was an +orderly age, beautifully sure of itself, and the area of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> three +governments was nicely delimited. There was only a small place for the +third of these governments.</p> + +<p>For the purposes of more common understanding I shall sometimes refer to +the government of the clock as the government of Progress, and the +government of the clock-winders as the government of business, and to +the third government as the government at Washington.</p> + +<p>Before the war the American was sure that with each tick of the clock +the world grew richer and better, especially richer. Progress went +inevitably on and on. It never turned backward or rested. Its mechanical +process relieved man of many responsibilities. No one would think of +touching the mechanism; turning back the hands of the clock might rob us +of some boon that was intended in the beginning whose moment of arrival +might be lost by interfering with God's Time.</p> + +<p>Born on a continent which only a few years before was a wilderness but +which now was the richest and one of the finest civilizations on the +earth, the American could not fail to believe in progress. The visible +evidences of it were on every hand. His father had been a poor immigrant +seeking the mere chance to live; he was a farmer possessed of many +acres, a business man who had an increasing income already in five +figures, a rising young attorney, or physician. Even from generation to +generation everything got better.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>The past had had its unhappy moments. The American looked back at the +past mainly to measure how far he had come and to guess how far moving +forward at a geometrical ratio of increased speed he would go in the not +distant future. History flattered him.</p> + +<p>Before his eyes went on the steady conquest over Nature, or perhaps it +is better to say, the steady surrender of Nature. Always there were new +discoveries of science. Always there were new inventions. Forces which a +little while ago were beyond control, whose existence even was +unsuspected, were harnessed to everyday uses. He saw progress in +statistics. Things which were reckoned in millions began to be reckoned +in hundreds of millions, began to be reckoned in billions. We loved to +read the long figures where, in the pleasing extension of ciphers, +wealth grew, debts grew—even debts were a source of pride before they +called for income taxes to meet the annual payments upon them.</p> + +<p>Progress would never stop. Tomorrow we should set the sun's rays to some +more practical use than making the earth green and pleasant to look at +and its fruits good to eat. We should employ them like the waters of +Niagara Falls, to turn the wheels of machinery by day and to light soap +and automobile signs on Broadway by night. We should split atoms apart +and release the mighty forces that had held them together since the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +beginning, for the production of commodities in greater and greater +quantities at less and less cost.</p> + +<p>"We should," I say, but I do our inmost thought a vast injustice. +Rather, Progress would, scientists and inventors being only the +instruments of a Fate which went steadily forward to the accomplishment +of its beneficent purposes. At the right moment, at the appointed hour, +the man would appear. Progress kept the prompter's book and gave him the +cue.</p> + +<p>To a people with all these evidences of an irresistible forward movement +in Nature before its eyes, came a prophet who gave it its law, the law +of evolution, the law by which once the monocellular organism had +acquired the mysterious gift of life out of combination and +recombination inevitably came man. It was all the unfolding of the +inevitable, the unrolling of time; the working out of a law.</p> + +<p>Now, law has a quite extraordinary effect upon men's minds. The more Law +there is the less Man there is. The more man spells Law with a capital +letter the more he spells himself with a small letter. Man was no longer +the special creation of God. God, instead of making Adam and Eve his +wife, fashioned a grain of star dust and gave it a grain of star dust to +wife, leaving the rest to Progress. Man who had been a little lower than +the angels became, by an immense act of faith, a little higher than the +earthworm. The old doctrine of the Fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> of Man took on a reverse twist. +Man had not fallen but he had risen from such debased beginnings that he +had not got far. He was in about the same place where he would have been +if he had fallen.</p> + +<p>It was easy to turn upside down our belief in the Fall of Man. We always +knew there was something wrong with him, but we did not know what it was +until evolution explained his unregenerate character so satisfactorily. +Still the thought that Man did not move forward as fast as things, was +less the special ward of Progress than automobiles, elevators and +bathtubs, was vaguely disturbing.</p> + +<p>The Greeks had left us records which showed that the human mind was as +good three thousand years ago as it is today, or better. We shut our +eyes to this bit of evidence by abandoning the study of the classics and +excluding all allusion to them in the oratory of our Congress. And Mr. +Wells in his History has since justified us by proving that the Greeks +were after all only the common run of small-town +folk—over-press-agented, perhaps, by some fellows in the Middle Ages +who had got tired of the Church and who therefore pretended that there +was something bigger and better in the world than it was.</p> + +<p>So we pinned our hopes on the Martians and spent our time frantically +signalling to the nearby planet, asking whether, when the earth grew as +cold as King David when his physicians<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> "prescribed by way of poultice a +young belle," and responded only weakly to the caress of the Sun, when +its oceans dried up and only a trickle of water came down through its +valleys from the melting ice at its poles, we should not, like the +fancied inhabitants of the nearest celestial body, have evolved at last +into super-beings. We wanted some evidence from our neighbors that, in +spite of the Greeks, by merely watching the clock we should arrive at a +higher estate.</p> + +<p>The point I am trying to make is that we have been conducting the most +interesting of Time's experiments in the government of men at a period +when Man has been at a greater discount than usual in his own mind, when +self-government faced too much competition from government by the clock.</p> + +<p>When I speak of government by the clock, I should, perhaps, use capital +letters to indicate that I have in mind that timepiece on which is +recorded God's Time; whose ticking is the forward march of progress. +Clocks as they touch our lives require human intervention. The winders +of these clocks perform something that may be described as an office.</p> + +<p>You recall the place the clock filled in our households a generation +ago. Father wound it once a week, at a stated time, as regularly as he +went to church. The winding of it was a function. No other hand but +father's touched the key; if one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> had, the whole institution of family +life would have been imperiled. Father is a symbol for the government of +the clock-winders, those sacred persons who translated Progress into +terms of common utility.</p> + +<p>When we descended from the regions of theocratic power to those of human +institutions, we found ourselves in America to be workers in one vast +countrywide workshop. The workshop touches us more directly and more +importantly than does the nation. Out of the workshop comes our bread +and butter. When the workshop closes down we suffer and form on line at +the soup kitchens.</p> + +<p>Three meals a day concern us more than do post-offices and federal +buildings, of however white marble or however noble façades. What we +have to eat and to wear, what we may put in the bank, what real freedom +we enjoy, our position in the eyes of men, our happiness and +unhappiness, depend on our relations to the national workshop, not on +our relations to the national government.</p> + +<p>We conceived of it vaguely as a thing which produced prosperity, not +prosperity in its larger and more permanent aspects—that was ours +through the beneficence of Progress and the immortal luck of our +country—but prosperity in its more immediate details.</p> + +<p>A lot of confused thinking in which survived political ideas as old as +the race, converted into modern forms, entered into our conception of +it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> It was a thing of gods and demigods, with legends of golden fleeces +and of Hercules holding up the skies. It was feudal in its privileges +and immunities. It enjoyed the divine right of kings. Yet it operated +under laws not made by man.</p> + +<p>When it failed to effect prosperity, it was because of a certain law +that at the end of ever so many years of fatness it must produce a +famine. At such times men, demigods, stepped out of banks with sacks of +gold on their shoulders and mitigated the rigors of its failure.</p> + +<p>And these splendid personages might set going again that which law +stopped. We bowed patiently and unquestioningly to its periodic +eccentricity as part of the Fate that fell upon the original sinner, and +watched hopefully the powerful men who might in their pleasure or their +wisdom end our sufferings.</p> + +<p>We were taught to regard it as a thing distinct from political +authority, so that the less governors and lawmakers interfered with it +the better for the general welfare. Back in our past is a thorough +contempt for human intelligence which relates somehow to the religious +precept against questioning the wisdom of God. Whatever ordinary men did +in the field of economics was sure to be wrong and to check the flow of +goods upon which the well-being of society depended. We were all, except +the familiars of the great forces, impotent pieces of the game economic +law played upon this checker-board of nights and days.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>I have said that this government of the national workshop in which we +were all laborers or foremen or superintendents or masters sometimes +seemed to our consciousness a government of laws and sometimes a +government of men. In any primitive faith priests played a large part, +and probably the primitive worshippers before them much of the time did +not think beyond the priests, while sometimes they did—when it was +convenient for the priests that they should.</p> + +<p>When famines or plagues came it was because the gods were angry. When +they are averted it is the priests who have averted them. When economic +panics came it was because we had sinned against economic law; when they +were averted it was because men had averted them, men who lived on +intimate terms with economic law and understood its mysterious ways, and +enjoyed its favor, as their great possessions testified.</p> + +<p>Naturally, we are immensely more directly and more constantly concerned +with this government than with the government at Washington. Besides, we +were mostly business men, or hoped to be. It was our government more +truly than was the government at Washington.</p> + +<p>Only a limited area in the political consciousness was left for +self-government. You descended from the heights to the broad flat plain +of man's contempt for man. It was there, rooted firmly in the +constitution, that the government at Washington<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> reared its head. +Self-government is a new thing; no myth has gathered about it. It was +established among men who believed in the doctrine of the original sin, +and it had been carried by their successors, who had abandoned the +sinner Adam as the progenitor of their kind for the sinless but +inglorious earthworm. The inferiority complex which is the race's most +persistent heritage from the past was written all over it.</p> + +<p>I suppose it was Adam Smith who made self-government possible by +discovering that the things really essential to our welfare would take +care of themselves if we only let them alone and that the more we let +them alone the better they would take care of themselves, under eternal +and immutable laws. Ah, the happy thought occurred, if the really +essential things are thus beneficially regulated why shouldn't we have +the fun of managing the non-essentials ourselves?</p> + +<p>Progress ruled the world kindly and well. It might be trusted to see +that all went for the best. The government of business functioned +effectively for the general weal. The future was in the hands of a force +that made the world richer and better. The present, in all that +concerned man most vitally with regards food and shelter, was directed +by enlightened self-interest represented by men who personified success.</p> + +<p>It was impossible not to be optimistic when existence was so well +ordered. There was no sorry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> scheme of things to be seized entire. Life +was a sort of tropics without tropical discomforts. The tropics do not +produce men. They produce things.</p> + +<p>The Mechanism worked, as it seemed to us, in those happy days. We were +satisfied with the clock and the clock-winders. We were not divided in +our minds as to whether we should turn back its hands. The less men +meddled the better. There was little work for human government to do. +There was no call for men.</p> + +<p>The picture in our heads, to use Mr. Graham Wallas's phrase, was of a +world well ruled by a will from the beginning, whose purpose was +increase; of some superior men having semi-sacred relations with the +will who acted as intermediaries between the will and the rest of us; +and of the rest of us as being rewarded by the will, through its +intermediaries, according to our timidity and submissiveness.</p> + +<p>It was, the world, over the great age of the racial inferiority complex, +for which Science had furnished a new and convincing basis. I might +maintain that the Great War was modern society's effort to compensate +for the evolution complex; man wanted to show what he could do, in spite +of his slimy origin. Anyway, it broke the picture in our heads. Being +economical, like Mr. Harding, we are trying both to save the pieces of +the picture and put them together again, and to form, out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> them +unfortunately, a new picture; which accounts for our confusion.</p> + +<p>But the picture in our heads before the war, such as it was, is the +reason for our present inadequacy. You could not form much of a +self-government or develop men for one, with that complex in your soul.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>GOD'S TIME AS IT IS; AN INGERSOLL THAT REQUIRES MUCH WINDING</h3> + + +<p>How many of us believe in Progress with the unquestioning faith we had +before that day in July, 1914, when Austria's declaration of war upon +Serbia started the ruin of all that centuries had built up in Europe? +Most of us have not stopped to analyze what has happened since to our +belief that the world ever moved by an irresistible primal impulse +forward to more and better things, that the song which the morning stars +sang together was "It shall be multiplied unto you," that increment is +inevitable and blessed. But how many of us really believe that in the +unqualified way we once did?</p> + +<p>The world had many pleasant illusions about Progress before the great +catastrophe of 1914 came to shatter them. And nowhere were these +illusions more cheerfully accepted than in this country of ours, where a +wilderness had become a great civilization in the space of a century and +where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> evidences of rapid, continuous advancement were naturally +strong.</p> + +<p>The first pleasant illusion was that modern progress had made war +impossible, at least war between the great nations of the earth, which, +profiting by the examples we had set them, enjoyed more or less free +governments, where production mounted from year to year, where wealth +was ever increasing. Destiny plainly meant more and more iron dug from +the ground and turned into steel machinery, larger, more powerful +automobiles, taller and taller buildings, swifter and swifter elevators, +more and more capacious freight cars, and destiny would not tolerate +stopping all this for the insanity of destruction.</p> + +<p>Moreover—how good were the ways of Progress—the ever increasing +mastery over the forces of nature which had been fate's latest and best +gift to humanity, approaching a sort of millennium of machinery, while +creating vaster engines of industry had brought into being more and +monstrous weapons of warfare.</p> + +<p>Life with benignant irony was making man peaceful in spite of himself. +His bigger and bigger cannon, his more and more lethal explosives were +destroying his capacity for destruction. War was being hoist by its own +petard. The bigger the armies, the more annihilating the shells piled up +in the arsenals, the less the chance of their ever being used.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Progress, infinitely good toward man, had found a way out of war, the +plague that had blighted the earth since the beginning. What religion +could not do, the steel foundries and the chemical laboratories had +done. They had made war too deadly to be endured. In effect they had +abolished it. Peace was a by-product of the Bessemer oven and the dye +vat. Man's conquest of himself was an unconsidered incident of his +conquest of nature.</p> + +<p>Then there were the costs of war. Progress had done something more than +make fighting intolerably destructive of men and cities; it had made it +intolerably destructive of money. Even if we would go to war, we could +not since no nation could face the vast expenditures.</p> + +<p>Two little wars of brief duration, the Boer War and the Balkan War, had +left great debts to be paid and had brought in their train financial +disturbances affecting the entire world. A European war would destroy +immensely more capital and involve vastly greater burdens. No nation +with such a load on its shoulders could meet the competition of its +peace keeping rivals for the world's trade. No government in its senses +would provoke such consequences, and governments were, of course, always +in their senses.</p> + +<p>You did not have to accept this as an act of faith; you could prove it. +Shells, thanks to Progress, cost so many hundreds of dollars each.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +Cannon to fire them cost so many thousands of dollars each and could +only be used a very few times. Armies such as the nations of Europe +trained, cost so much a day to feed and to move. The demonstration was +perfect. Progress had rendered war virtually impossible.</p> + +<p>If in spite of all a war between great modern nations did start, it +could last only a few weeks. No people could stand the strain. +Bankruptcy lay at the end of a short campaign. A month would disclose +the folly of it, and bring the contestants to their senses; if it did +not, exhaustion would. Credit would quickly disappear. Nations could not +borrow on the scale necessary to prolong the struggle.</p> + +<p>The wisest said all these things as governments began to issue orders of +mobilization in 1914. Emperors were merely shaking their shining armor +at each other. There would be no war. It was impossible. The world had +progressed too far. Anachronistic monarchies might not know it, but it +had. Their armies belonged as much to the past as their little titles, +as all the middle-age humbug of royalty, their high-wheeled coaches, +their out-riders in their bright uniform, their debilitating habit of +marrying cousins, their absurdities about their own divine rights. They +had armies, as they wore upturned mustachios, to make themselves look +imposing. They were as unreal as the pictured kings in children's story +books or on a deck of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> cards. Forces mightier than they had settled +forever the question of war.</p> + +<p>And when hostilities actually began an incredulous America knew they +would be over in three months. Anybody with a piece of paper and a +pencil could prove that they could not last. It took all of Kitchener's +prestige to persuade society that the fighting would keep on through the +winter, and his prediction that it would continue three years was +received as the error of a reporter or the opinion of a professional +soldier who overlooked the economic impossibility of a long war.</p> + +<p>It is worth while recalling these cheerful illusions to estimate what +has happened to the idea of Progress in seven swiftly changing years. We +did not give up readily the illusion that the world had been vastly and +permanently changed for the better. As it was proved that there could be +a war and a long one and as the evidence multiplied that this war was +the most devastating in all history, we merely changed our idea of +Progress, which became in our minds a force that sometimes produced evil +in order that good might result.</p> + +<p>The Great War itself was assimilated to our idea of a beneficent fate. +Whom Progress loveth it chasteneth. Instead of rendering war impossible +by making it destructive and costly, it visited the earth with the +greatest war of all time in order to make war impossible. This was the +war to end all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> war. The ways of progress were past finding out but they +were good.</p> + +<p>Paper demonstrations had gone wrong. Governments did not go bankrupt +after a few months but could still borrow at the end of five years. +Humanity did not sicken and turn away from the destruction, but the +greater the carnage the more eager were the nations still at peace to +have a hand in it. Still it could never happen again. It was a lesson +sent of fate. Men must co-operate with progress and not leave to that +force the sole responsibility for a permanently peaceful future. They +had sinned against the light in allowing such unprogressive things, as +autocracies upon the earth. They must remove the abominations of the +Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns. Once they had set up that brightest +flower of Progress, modern democracy, in place of the ancient empires, +there would be no more wars. Democracy had one great merit. It was +rather stupid and lacking in foresight. It did not prepare for war and +being forever unready would not fight.</p> + +<p>The war had been sent by Progress to call man's attention to their +duties regarding certain anachronisms with which Progress was otherwise +unable to deal.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>UNCLE SAM'S CONFERENCE</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>You will observe that the idea of Progress took three forms in as many +years. First it was a pure force moving straight ahead toward a goal of +unimaginable splendor, even whose questionable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> products like bigger +cannon and higher explosives accomplished by one of its larger ironies +benefits that were the opposite of their purposes.</p> + +<p>Then assuming the aspects of a more personal deity, it became capable of +intentions and could choose courses utterly inconsistent with itself in +order to achieve ends that would be splendidly consistent with itself. +It made larger demands upon faith.</p> + +<p>Then it began to require a little aid from man himself, on the principle +that God helps them that help themselves, the cleaning up by men of the +human rubbish heap, the purging of autocracy by democracy. Human +responsibility began to emerge. The picture in our heads was changing.</p> + +<p>Then, as the war came to a close it became apparent that President +Wilson's happy idea that democracies, being stupid and unready to fight, +would live together in eternal peace, was inadequate. The treaty would +leave the three great democracies armed as the autocracies never had +been armed. They might elect to remain so and use their weapons as +provocatively as any Hapsburg or Hohenzollern ever did. Men must +organize, must league themselves together, must govern themselves +internationally in order to have peace, which was no longer an +accidental by-product of the modern factory, but must be created by men +themselves, deliberately acting to that end. Men must work out their own +salvation, aided and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> admonished of course by such perfect works of +progress as a war to end war.</p> + +<p>Men make the attempt. The peoples of the earth assemble and write a +treaty which keeps the chief democratic nations on the continent of +Europe armed against each other, which provides endless subjects of +dispute among the smaller countries; and they sign a covenant which the +unanimous opinion of mankind rejects as an effective safeguard against +future wars and which many regard as dividing the earth into two hostile +camps. "It was humanity's failure," declares General Smuts. "There will +always be war," asserts President Harding, calling a conference not to +end war but to lessen the cost of preparing for war.</p> + +<p>Not only has material progress failed to produce peace as its +by-product, but moral progress has failed to produce peace as its +deliberate product.</p> + +<p>And Progress is in reality moving forward to wars more deadly and more +ruinous than the last. Weapons were developed toward the end of the +Great War capable of vastly worse havoc than any used during its course. +And only a beginning has been made. If we may come to use the power that +holds atoms together in the driving of engines, we may also use it in +war to blast whole cities from the face of the earth. Conquest of the +air means larger bombs from the air. Greater knowledge of chemistry +means industrial advancement and also deadlier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> poison gases. Material +gains bring compensating material ills or the possibility of them.</p> + +<p>Even the material gains, great as they have been, seem somewhat smaller +today than they once were thought to be. In our most optimistic moments +before the war we had the pleasant illusion of steadily decreasing hours +of labor and steadily lowering costs. Men had worked twelve, ten, and +finally eight hours a day, and it was predicted that this process would +go on until six, perhaps four hours a day would be sufficient to supply +the needs of the race.</p> + +<p>We paid five cent fares on the street cars and were hopeful that they +would become three cent fares; three cents was established by law in +many cities as the maximum charge. The railroads collected a little over +two cents a mile for carrying passengers and in many states statutes +were enacted establishing two cents a mile as the legal rate. We were +impressed by striking examples of lowering prices, in the automobile +industry for example, and were confident that this was the rule of +modern life.</p> + +<p>Prices, except of food products, were steadily decreasing; there might +be an end to this movement but we were nowhere near the end. The wonders +of modern inventions, and if not these, the economics of concentrated +organization, and if not these, the use of by-products, were steadily +lowering costs. The standard of living was rising.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> What was the rich +man's luxury in one generation was the poor man's necessity in the next. +It would always be so. That was Progress.</p> + +<p>We now pay seven or eight cents to ride on street cars and more than +three cents a mile to travel on trains. All prices have advanced. The +standard of living has declined and we ask ourselves if it will not have +to decline still further. No one now talks of a six-hour day. We +recognize a check in the process toward increasing well-being at less +effort. Life has become more difficult. Progress is no longer a simple +and steady movement onward in a single direction. Like evolution +sometimes it seems to stand still or perhaps go back. Like evolution it +requires a <i>vital élan</i>; it is a thing of leaps and rests. We are less +enthusiastic about it when it rests.</p> + +<p>We blame our discomfiture, the higher prices and the lower standard of +living on the war, but much of it was inevitable, war or no war. The +idea that the struggle for existence would grow steadily easier was +largely a conclusion from appearances. We were raising our standard of +living by skimming the cream of our natural resources. When our original +forests were cut, when the most easily mined veins of iron and coal were +exhausted, when oil wells ceased to gush and had to be pumped, unless +substitutes were found, all the basic costs of production would advance. +Ultimately they would advance to the point where economies of +organization,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of quantity production, of by-product development, so far +as they have been realized, would no longer serve to keep down final +prices. We were rapidly reaching that point when the war came.</p> + +<p>We lived under an illusion. What we called the results of progress was +the rapid exhaustion of easily available resources. We used our capital +and thought ourselves rich. And we lie under a burden of debt made much +heavier by the weapons which progress put into our hands. Progress had +not made war too expensive to fight but it had made peace too expensive +to be borne. We forgot the law of diminishing returns. We ignored the +lessons of history that all ages come to an end, when the struggle for +existence once more grows severe until new instruments are found equal +to the further conquest over nature. Useful inventions have not kept +pace with increasing consumption and rapidly disappearing virgin +resources. The process of steadily lowering costs of production has +stopped and reverse process has set in. Spectacular inventions like the +airplane have deluded us into the belief that Progress, always blessing +us, we had the world by the tail. But coal and iron became harder and +costlier to mine. Oil neared exhaustion. Timber grew scarcer. +Agricultural lands smaller in proportion to population.</p> + +<p>Immense possibilities lie before us. So they did before the man with the +stone hatchet in his hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> but he waited long for the steam, saw and +drill and crusher. An invention which would mean as much in the conquest +of nature as did the steam engine would make the war debt as easily +borne as the week's account at the grocery store. But when will progress +vouchsafe it? Converting coal into power we waste 85 per cent of its +energy in coal and call that efficient. But does Progress always respond +instantly to our needs with new methods and devices, like a nurse +responding to a hungry child? A few years ago we were sure it did, but +now we look anxiously at the skies for a sign.</p> + +<p>We had another characteristic pleasant illusion during the war. +Progress, like the Lord, in all previous conflicts was on our side. Here +was a great need of humanity. Surely, according to rule, it should be +met by some great invention that would blast the Germans out of their +places in the earth and give the sons of light an easy and certain +victory. All the familiars of the deity sat about in boards watching for +the indication that the engine to meet the needs of civilization had +been granted. But it never was.</p> + +<p>I do not write this to suggest that men, especially American men, have +ceased to believe in Progress. They would be fools if they had. I write +to suggest that they have ceased to believe in Progress. They would be +fools if they had not. A great illusion is gone, one of the chief +dislocations wrought by the war.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>What the war has done to our way of thinking has been to lay a new +stress upon man as a free and responsible agent. After all the battles +were won not by guns, or tanks or gas or airplanes, but as always by the +common man offering his breast to the shots of the enemy. The hope of +the future is all in human organizations, in societies of nations, in +councils and conferences. Men's minds turn once more to governments with +renewed expectation. Not only do we think for the first time seriously +of a government of the world but we focus more attention on the +government at Washington. Groups with special interests to serve reach +out openly to control it.</p> + +<p>The war laid a new emphasis on government. Not only did the government +have our persons and our lives at its command but it assumed authority +over our food, it directed our factories and our railroads, it told us +what we could manufacture and ship, it decided who could borrow of the +general credit and for what purposes, it fixed the prices at which we +could buy and sell. It came to occupy a new place in the national +consciousness and one which it will never wholly lose. One rival to +it,—the belief, having its roots in early religious ideas, and +strengthened by scientific theory and the outward results of the great +inventions, that moved by some irresistible impulse, life went steadily +forward to higher and higher planes, and that man had but little to do +but pluck the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> fruits of progress—has been badly shattered by events.</p> + +<p>But men do not change beliefs suddenly. Perhaps after all the war was +only the way of progress—to usher in a new and brilliant day. Perhaps +the unfolding future has something near in store far greater and better +than went before. We shall not trust men too far, men with their +obstinate blindness, men with their originally sinful habit of thinking +they know better than the forces which rule the world. We want not +leaders but weather cocks, who will veer to the kindlier wind that may +blow when it is yet only a zephyr.</p> + +<p>We turn to men yet, we cling a little to the hope that fate will yet +save us. This division in us accounts for Lloyd George and Harding, our +own commonplace "best we have on hand" substitute for the infinitely +variable Englishman, adjusted to every breath that blows, who having no +set purpose of his own offers no serious obstacle to any generous design +of fate.</p> + +<p>Senator Borah once said to me, "The Administration has no definite +policies." And it is not Mr. Harding's fault. If he wanted to form any +the people wouldn't let him. They elected him not to have any. They +desired in the White House some one who would not look further ahead +than the next day until the future became clearer. If he had purposes +events might prove them to be wrong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>The same fundamental idea underlay the remark of a member of the +Cabinet, at the outset of the recent disarmament and Far Eastern +Conference, that "Lloyd George was the hope of the gathering because he +had no principles."</p> + +<p>The war destroyed many men but it half restored Man. You see how +inevitable optimism is. The ways of Progress are indeed past finding +out. Governments during it performed the impossible. They even took in +hand the vast industrial mechanism which we ordinarily leave to the +control of the "forces." We half suspect they might do the impossible in +peace but we half hope that some kindlier fate is in store for us than +to trust ourselves to human intelligence. We don't know whether to put +our money on Man or on Progress; so we put it on Mr. Harding.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>GOLDEN WORDS TURN TO BRASS</h3> + + +<p>Unlike government by Progress, government by business, by the +semi-sacred intermediaries between the will to increase and the rest of +us, began to disintegrate before the war; which merely completed the +process.</p> + +<p>Let us consider what has happened in the last few years to government by +business, that government which the smoking compartment philosopher has +in mind when he says so hopefully of Mr. Harding: "<i>They</i> will see to it +that he gets along all right."</p> + +<p>The first manifestation of nationality in this country was the +nationality of business. Before industry became national nothing was +national. The United States was a pleasant congeries of localities. It +was held together by reading everywhere the story of the Battle of +Bunker Hill in the same school history, which sometimes bore a different +author's name but which was always the same history. "Don't fire till +you can see the whites of their eyes" and "If we don't hang together we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +shall all hang separately" were the unifying bond, and they were enough. +We had the same sense of identity as an infant has when it becomes aware +that the delightful toe and the delightful mouth where it is inserted +appertain vaguely to the one ego. The local factory and the local bank +subtended the entire arc of economic consciousness. There was one +single-track railroad which ran from Podunk to Peopack and another from +Peopack to Peoria, unrelated, discontinuous.</p> + +<p>In those simple times when business was local the local factory owner, +banker, or railroad builder was the hero of his neighborhood. It was he +who "put the town on the map." He gave it prosperity. He built it by +attracting labor into his employment. He gave it contact with the +outside world. If you owned town lots it was he who gave them value and +it was he who might take away their value if he was offended. If you had +a general store it was he who added to its patronage by adding to the +population. If you raised farm products nearby it was he who improved +your market. He built the fine house which it was your pride to show +visitors. Your success and happiness was bound up in his. He conferred +his blessings for a consideration, for you were careful to make no laws +which restricted the freedom of his operations. You permitted him a vast +unofficial "say" in your local government; you gave him a little the +best of it in the assessment for taxes. You felt a little lifted up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> by +his condescension in calling you by your first name and stopping to ask +about your family on the street corner. You were jealous of his rights +because after all the value of your own depended upon his use of his.</p> + +<p>When business figures arose upon the national horizon they were merely +these local figures vastly multiplied. As a people we called them "Jim" +and "Jay," and "Dan'l," just as we had called the local manufacturer and +banker by their first names. All the good will that went to the local +business leaders went to them. They put money into our pockets, when +they didn't happen to take it out of our pockets; on the whole they were +doing the great work of making this country a richer and better land. +Some who did not conceive the resources of the printing press in the +issuance of new securities had to suffer, but that was their lookout; +suffering for some was the way of the world.</p> + +<p>Business began to be national in the tying together into systems the +little dislocated railroads that local enterprise had laid down and in +the creation of a national securities market for the distribution of +ownership in the new combinations.</p> + +<p>A new era opened when Gould and Fisk and Drew started at full speed +their rival printing presses in Wall Street. Look over our whole drab +political story from the death of Lincoln to the arrival of Roosevelt, +more than a generation, and, if we did not preserve the names of our +Presidents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> in our histories, how many names are there worth +remembering? Garfield was shot, which was dramatic. Cleveland was a fat +man who used long Latin words. He was also the first Democratic chief +executive in more than thirty years. What else? Who else?</p> + +<p>Meanwhile an amazing array of business personages diverted attention +from the inconspicuous Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys, who were the +flower of our public life. Gould, Fisk, Drew, Hill, Carnegie, the +Rockefellers, Harriman, Morgan, Ryan—business was fertile of men, +politics sterile; you have to go back to the foundation of the +government for a period so prolific in men, of the other sort, or to the +age of Elizabeth or of Pericles for another as prolific in men, of still +another kind. How could the dull sideshow in Washington compete with the +big spectacle in New York?</p> + +<p>These demigods of business were not only shining personalities; they +were doing the work of making America great and rich; we all shared in +the prosperity they were creating. To go back to the small town again, +who was it increased the opportunities of the storekeeper, the +neighboring farmer, or real estate holder? Was it the mayor and the +common council by passing ordinances about street signs and sidewalk +encumbrances? Or the manufacturer or railroad builder who put the town +on the map, giving employment to labor or an outlet for its products?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>The government at Washington occupied a place in our consciousness +similar to that of the government of the small town. It was charged with +our national defense, a function of such little importance that we had +hardly an army or a navy. It conducted our economic defense, against the +foreigner, with laws written, however, by business itself, which +naturally knew best how it wanted to be defended; you could not, in your +proper senses, suppose that the Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys were +wiser than the Carnegies, Hills, Morgans, or Harrimans. For the rest it +was told severely to let well enough alone. To make assurance doubly +sure that it would do so it was rather openly given over to the great +men who were creating the national wealth.</p> + +<p>Starting with the combination of the little speculatively built +railroads into systems and the development of a security market to float +the shares of stock in the new companies, business took on rapidly a +more and more national character. Great bankers arose to finance the +consolidations. An investing public with a wider horizon than that which +used to put its money in local enterprises entrusted its funds in the +hands of the great bankers or took its chances in the market for stocks. +Industry went through a similar concentration. Stronger companies +absorbed their weaker and less successful rivals. The same bankers who +sat in the boards of directors of the railroads representing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> their +investing public took their places in the directorate of manufacturing +combinations.</p> + +<p>The railroads seeking the business of the big industrial companies and +the big industrial companies desiring favors from the railroads placed +representatives in each others' boards. This interlocking created a +national organization of business dominated by a few striking and +spectacular figures.</p> + +<p>The popular imagination was as much heated over the discovery of the +United States as a single field of enterprise as the imagination of +Europe had been centuries earlier over the discovery of the new world.</p> + +<p>The psychology of the local industry period carried over into this new +period of national industry. The whole country became one vast small +town. The masters of industry, banking, and the railroads were the +leading citizens. They were "putting the United States on the map," as +the local creator of wealth had put the small town on the map. They were +doing something vast, from which we all undoubtedly benefited. Perhaps +we could not trace our advantage so immediately as we could to the +enterprise of the man who brought population to our town, swelling the +price of our real estate or increasing the sales at our stores. But what +had been a matter of experience on a small scale was a matter of belief +on a large scale. The same consequences must follow, with manifold +abundance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> And the nation was demonstrably growing rapidly, immensely +richer; surely cause and effect.</p> + +<p>Business had from the first taken on among us, as Mr. Lowes Dickinson +remarks, a religious character; and when by a great thrust it +overreached the bounds of locality and became national, its major +prophets emerged. Mr. Van Wyck Brooks quotes Mark Twain as writing: "The +words of a proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound, and his +common sayings are as if they were solid wisdom." How much more of this +sacred character inhered in the heroes who created nationwide railroad +systems, vast steelmaking consolidations, monopolies of oil and coal!</p> + +<p>When a New York lawyer said of E. H. Harriman that he moved in spheres +which no one else dare tread, he was putting, a little late, into words +the national awe of the men who had overleapt the bounds of locality and +bestrode the continent industrially, the heads of the vast business +hierarchy. When Mr. Baer said that he operated the Reading Railroad by +divine right he said only what a worshipping people had taught him to +think. Those men did not use this half-religious language by accident; +they crystallized into phrases the feeling of the country toward those +who had done God's work of making it rich, making it successful.</p> + +<p>Each like an unconscious Cervantes helped to laugh our industrial +chivalry away.</p> + +<p>How easy it is to believe about yourself what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> everyone believes about +you! How hard not to! How easy to believe that you rule railroads by +"divine right," or walk in "higher spheres," when the whole unexpressed +consciousness of a hundred million people assigns you just such hieratic +appurtenances and privileges. How doubt in the face of all this +evidence? They identified themselves with Progress, and Progress was +what ruled the world. If you have faith and if you are fortified with +the faith of others, self-identification with one of the larger forces +is not difficult. Was not what they were doing Progress, was it not the +realization of that benignant will to the utter blossoming of chaos into +utility which was planned in the beginning? Were they not instruments +rather than mere men, instruments of the greater purpose of which +America was the perfect work? If you believe in theocratic forces you +believe also in chosen human agencies for carrying them out.</p> + +<p>They were more than instruments of Progress. I have spoken of government +by economic law as having challenged political government in the +consciousness of the people. As a country we perhaps believe in economic +law more firmly than any nation in the world. Wasn't America being +produced in accordance with economic law and wasn't America one of the +marvels of the earth? I asked a salesman recently, a man with no +personal interests which would give him the prejudices of the business +world, why he hated Henry Ford.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> "Because," he replied instantly and +without hesitation, "he defies economic law." He spoke like a true +American. To defy economic law and make money at it is like selling the +Savior for twenty pieces of silver.</p> + +<p>"The physical laws," says De Gourmont, "promulgated or established by +the scientists, are confessions of ignorance. When they cannot explain a +mechanism they declare its movements are due to a law. Bodies fall by +virtue of the law of gravitation. This has precisely the same value in +the serious order as the comic <i>virtus dormitiva</i>." In the promulgation +of economic law our interest perverts the simple and just operation of +our ignorance. In the field of physical phenomena we perceive a series +of uniform events and call that uniformity a law. In the field of +economic phenomena we perceive a series of events uniformly serving our +interests and call that uniformity a law.</p> + +<p>These greater business men of the past fruitful generation operated on +the whole over a long period of falling prices. Wealth accumulated. You +read about it in the government reports, dividing the total by the total +population. The division thus effected was mighty assuring. Labor was +better paid. Higher institutions of learning multiplied. Libraries +housed in marble grew upon every crossroads. Intellectual as well as +material needs were in process of being better satisfied. We were +approaching an age when ink upon white paper, now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> so cheap, cheaper +than ever in the pitiful past, should lift humanity to a new and higher +level.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>REPRESENTATIVE FRANK W. MONDELL OF WYOMING</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The evidence was conclusive. These greater business men were in supreme, +in conspicuous direction of the country's development. The happiest +results followed. They worked in harmony with economic law, for they +prospered gloriously and one could no more break economic law and +prosper than one could break criminal law and keep out of jail. Until +Ford came no one could defy economic law with impunity.</p> + +<p>And law and justice being two ideas that associate themselves together +in the human mind, in a binder of optimism perhaps, like the disparate +elements that form clinkers in a furnace, they were accomplishing that +perfect work of the justice which inhered in things at the beginning, +when tiny atoms with the urge to produce an earth fit for man to live +on, to produce America in short, began to discover affinities for each +other. No wonder they penetrated "higher spheres" ruled by "divine +right," and that "golden words" dropped from their mouths. Progress, +destiny, an instinct for economic law, it was much to unite one man.</p> + +<p>Again, they were more than this. Men cannot be so universally looked to +for the welfare of the nation as they were, without becoming in effect +the government of that nation. Business and the government were one. +Public opinion at that time would have regarded an administration which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +defied the great commercial interests as dangerous to the country's +advancement. Lawyers like Mr. Knox or Mr. Root, who had proved their +value to them, went to the Senate as their spokesmen. Able and ambitious +men in both Houses of Congress, wishing power and influence, became +their agents. The chairmen of the important committees of both houses +were in their confidence and spoke with authority because of what they +represented. Some of the virtue of the great, some shadow of divine +right, descended upon them. Among valets the valet of the king is king.</p> + +<p>We forget, in the great outcry that was raised a few years ago over the +"invisible government," that the invisible government was once +sufficiently visible, almost consciously recognized, and fully accepted. +It seemed the most natural thing in the world that the men who were +making the country rich, making it a nation economically, should work +their will freely at Washington. We jealously guarded their liberties. +Woe unto the legislator who would interfere with their freedom to +contract, for example, for the labor of children, which we described as +the freedom of children to sell their labor advantageously. Adult labor +banding together to arrange terms of its own sale was felt to be a +public enemy. Every age has its fetish; the medicine man who could +exorcise the evil spirit in stone and bush was not a more privileged +character than his successor at whose touch prosperity sprang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> out of +the earth, at whose word the mysterious economic forces which might in +their wrath prove so destructive, bowed and became kind.</p> + +<p>Make a few individuals the embodiment of a national purpose that has +long existed, unconscious and unquestioned, give them as you inevitably +do in such a case the utmost freedom that is possible on this earth, let +them be limited enough mentally so that they are blind to any other +possible purpose; do all these things and you produce great men. It was +an age of great men, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Morgans, Hills, Ryans, +Harrimans, and a host of others, richer in personalities than any other +period of American life except that which produced Washington, Hamilton, +Franklin, Jefferson, and Marshall. They were the flowering of the whole +pioneer civilization.</p> + +<p>One hundred and fifty years of freedom has produced few free men. +Perhaps these were all. They may not have been free intellectually. +Charles Francis Adams writes of their kind: "I have known, and known +tolerably well, a good many successful men,—'big' financially, men +famous during the last half century; and a less interesting crowd I do +not care to encounter. Not one that I have ever known would I care to +meet again, nor is one of them associated in my mind with the idea of +humor, thought, or refinement."</p> + +<p>Never mind. They were free in all the essential ways. The men of whom +Adams wrote had no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> such sense of their limitations as he expressed. +Only an Adams would then have had it, and the Adamses were not what M. +Galtier of <i>Le Temps</i> suggested when, hastily absorbing the American +spirit at Washington, he said to me: "I am reading <i>The Education of +Henry Adams</i>: He was what you would call a typical American, was he +not?"</p> + +<p>An Adams, even Charles Francis Adams, writing of that time, was +untypical enough, to have missed the point, which was not whether these +men "'big' financially" were interesting, witty, thoughtful, or refined, +but whether they were free. And they were; they were so sure of +themselves, and public opinion was so sure of them, that they +concentrated on the one great aim of that simple day, and did not waste +themselves upon non-essentials like "humor, thought, or refinement."</p> + +<p>I have a theory that we are wrong in ascribing the poverty of American +literature and statesmanship to the richness of our business life. "All +our best and ablest minds went into commerce," we say. We flatter +ourselves. Mr. Carnegie, born in the days of Elizabeth, might not have +been Shakespeare. Mr. Harriman was perhaps, after all, no mute Milton, +Mr. Morgan no Michaelangelo.</p> + +<p>These brave spirits developed in business not so much perhaps because of +the national urge to "conquer a continent" as because in business, +enjoying the immunity it then did, they found the utmost opportunity for +self-expression, the one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> great measure of freedom which this free +country afforded. A jealous public guarded their divine right from +impious hands. They believed in themselves. The people believed in them. +So the flowering of the pioneer age came, in such a race of men as are +not on the earth today, and the rule of business reached its climax.</p> + +<p>It was an autumn flowering, rich and golden like the Indian summer of +New England culture, a sign that a cycle was run. Adams sniffing from +the transcendental heights of Boston wrote: "a race of mere +money-getters and traders." Remember the sneers in our cocksure press of +those days at the "culture" of Boston? Boston has had its revenge. The +words "mere money-getters" bit in. There were other objects in life +beside pioneering the industrial opportunities of a whole continent just +brought together into commercial unity. Mr. Morgan began to buy art. Mr. +Carnegie began to buy libraries and started authorship himself. The men +"'big' financially" began to look over their shoulders and see the +shadows—as we all do now—where they a little before kept their eyes +straight forward and saw the one clear vision, the truth, such as it +was, that made them free.</p> + +<p>I have traced that element in the American political consciousness, +government by business, to its highest moment.</p> + +<p>"Divine right" is only safe when it is implicit. When you begin to avow +it, as Mr. Baer did, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> already in question. The national passion +for equality began to work. Had not Mr. Carnegie confessed the weakness +in his soul's fortress by writing a book? Had not Mr. Morgan by buying +art suggested the one aim of pioneering on a grand scale might not be +life's sole end?</p> + +<p>Mr. Baer with his avowal, Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Morgan with their seeking +of the broader satisfactions, Mr. Schwab behaving like a king in exile +at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, may have invited what followed. But +they were only expressing in their own way the sense becoming general +that pioneering was over and that its ideals were too narrow and too +few—even if no clear sense was coming of what state and what ideals +were to take their place. Men turn from leaders whose day of greatest +usefulness is past and set up new leaders against them. Against the +government by business the first great national unity that entered the +American consciousness they began to erect the state, the national +government at Washington.</p> + +<p>No one meant to end government by business and substitute for it +government by the people. Not for a moment. We devised a new set of +checks and balances, like that between the various branches provided for +in our Constitution, a new political organism which should equal and +coexist with the one we already had. The government personified by Mr. +Roosevelt was the check and balance to the government personified by +Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Harriman and Mr. Morgan. Governments never die but merely recede in +the national consciousness, like the old clothes which we keep in the +attic. Thus revolutions never effect a revolution; democracy is only a +Troy built upon nine other prehistoric Troys: beneath, you find +aristocracy, rule by divine right, despotism, theocracy, and every other +governance on which men in their invincible optimism have pinned their +faith.</p> + +<p>The revolution which Mr. Roosevelt brought about was the kind which +exclaims loudly "malefactors of great wealth" while writing to Mr. +Harriman "we are both practical men." It was the kind of revolution this +country desired. The nation wished to eat its cake and have it, to +retain government by business and have alongside it another government, +as powerful, as interesting, as colorful, as rich in personalities, as +the late autumn of pioneering had brought into gorgeous bloom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt's method with the new government was this: Senator Aldrich +and Speaker Cannon representing the still powerful coexistent government +by business in Congress, would call at the White House and tell the +President just how far he could go and no further. They would emerge. A +moment later the press in response to a summons would arrive. Mr. +Roosevelt would say: "I have just sent for Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Cannon +and forced them to accept my policy, etc." Nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> was deceived. Unlike +the philosopher who made all knowledge his province, Mr. Roosevelt made +all knowledge his playground, and not only all knowledge but all the +arts, including the art of government.</p> + +<p>In Mr. Roosevelt's day the two governments, government by business and +political government, existed side by side, of about equal proportions; +and no one really wished either to overtop the other. We were indulging +in revolution with our customary prudence.</p> + +<p>The human passion for equality which had risen against the last of those +dominant figures, the last and greatest of the pioneers, and started to +set up representatives of the public as great as they were, was +singularly fortunate in its first manifestations. It "found a man," in +that most amazing jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>If business had its array of extraordinary personalities, the rival +establishment had its Roosevelt, who surrounded himself with a shining +group of amateurs, Mr. Root, Mr. Knox, General Wood, James Garfield, Mr. +Pinchot, Mr. Knox Smith, the "Tennis Cabinet," to all of whom he +succeeded in imparting some vividness from his own abounding +personality. If pioneers from the days of Daniel Boone on have been +romantic, amateurs are equally romantic. It was romance against romance.</p> + +<p>The balance between the two governments did not last long. Government by +business was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> declining. It was being extruded from the control of +political affairs. Political government was rising. It was reaching out +to control certain phases of business itself. The great pioneers of +national industry were growing old. They were becoming self-conscious, +vaguely aware of changing circumstances, casting about for solider +foundations than "mere money getting," buying art and writing books, +establishing foundations, talking foolishly about their "divine right," +about the crime of "dying rich."</p> + +<p>A race of gamblers came in their train who caricatured their activities. +The great figures who were passing took long chances magnificently, +pioneer fashion, "to strike it rich," to found industries or magnify +avenues of trade. Their imitators, the Gateses, Morses, Heinzes, +and —— took long chances vulgarly for the excitement there was in them.</p> + +<p>Railroads had to be "rescued" from them. Wall Street had to organize its +Vigilantes against them.</p> + +<p>I went as a reporter to see —— once in New York and found him in his +library drinking. He sent for his servant, ordered six bottles of +champagne at once, and after his man had gone opened the whole six, one +after another, on his library rug. He had to exhibit in some way his +large manner of doing things, and this was the best way he could think +of at the moment. He belonged to a fevered race, intoxicated with the +idea of bigness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> juggling millions about to no more useful end than +that of pouring champagne on a carpet. They were the <i>reductio ad +absurdum</i> of the pioneer.</p> + +<p>The public no longer put its faith blindly as before in those romantic +figures, the great industrial pioneers, those Mississippi River pilots +who knew every rock and reef in the river. Stripped of much power and +prestige, no longer looked to without question for the safety of the +country, that magnificent species, the great pioneer, disappeared. It is +as dead and gone as that equally magnificent species the Mississippi +pilot of Mark Twain's day.</p> + +<p>The legitimate succession was the dynasty—it was the dynasty that +destroyed belief in the divine right of kings—of the second generation, +of the younger Stillman, of the younger Rockefeller, competent but +unremarkable, of the younger Morgan, more capable than the rest, +doubtless, but compare his countenance with the eagle mien of his +predecessor.</p> + +<p>I used often to discuss with Mr. Roosevelt the members of the dynasty. +He had no illusions. We both knew well a second-generation newspaper +proprietor, a young man of excellent character, as prudent as the +earlier generation had been daring, a petty King who always had an +aspiring Mayor of the palace at his elbow, inclined to go to sleep at +his post from excessive watching of his property. As we would go over +the names in the dynasty, Mr. Roosevelt would say almost invariably: "I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +can't describe him better to you than to say he's another ——," naming +our mutual acquaintance, one of the many of his sort into whose hands by +inheritance the control of business has descended.</p> + +<p>Whatever the reason is, whether the inertia of large organization and +the weakening of competition have favored the remaining in power of the +second generation, whether we have evolved but one great type, the +pioneer, whose day is past, and have not yet differentiated the true +business man any more than we have differentiated the true statesman; +whether that psychological change which I have sought to trace, that +denial of freedom which once was the pioneers'—the new laws, the hard +restraints operating now upon business as upon everything else and +enforcing conformity—there are today no Titans, no one stealing fire +from the heaven of Progress for the benefit of the human race—unless +Henry Ford—no Carnegies, Morgans, Rockefellers, Harrimans, of the +blessed nineties.</p> + +<p>The old sureness is gone. The great pioneers were never assailed by +doubts: they went straight forward, wearing the blinkers of a single +aim, which kept their eyes like those of harnessed horses in the narrow +road; God was with them, Progress was with them, Public Opinion was with +them, the government at Washington was with them.</p> + +<p>But their successors, like everyone else, look over their shoulders and +see the shadows: see the government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> at Washington and attach a comic +importance to that bewildered figure; just as the government at +Washington looks over its shoulder and sees at New York the government +by business, its traditional master, and wishing a master, is unaware +that the twilight of the gods is come. And both see that greatest of all +shadows, Public Opinion, the new monster of Frankenstein which everyone +feeds with propaganda, and fears. These three things were all one in the +bright days of the great pioneers, and in that perfect unity everyone +was sure, so sure, and the few were free, so free!</p> + +<p>Business no longer imposes itself up on the imagination through its +extraordinary personalities. In vain do we seek to recover the past. In +vain does the popular magazine fiction strive to furnish what life no +longer does—the pioneer ideal, the hero who overcomes fire and flood +and the machination of enemies and moves irresistibly forward to +success, who believes in himself, whose motto is that the will is not to +be gainsaid, whose life is one long Smile Week.</p> + +<p>Vast propaganda exists to hold us true to the old faith; we read it as +we used to read Sunday School fiction; but religion only sought its way +into hearts within the covers of E. P. Roe when other channels began to +close. We beat the bushes for the great, the kings that should come +after Agamemnon. Monthlies of vast circulation tell us of every +jack-of-all-trades who hits upon a million dollars. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> one found out +how to sell patches for automobile tires. That one was an office boy who +never knew when it became five o'clock in the afternoon. Our faith +requires vast stirring.</p> + +<p>To the gradual weakening of the idea that business was all-wise and +all-powerful, the war greatly contributed. Before 1914 men would say +confidently, "Ah, but business, the bankers, will not let the nations +fight. They have only to pull the strings of the purse and there will be +no money for the fighters." After hostilities began they would say with +equal confidence: "It will be all over in six weeks. The bankers will +not let it go on."</p> + +<p>Business was, however, not only powerless to prevent war but it stood by +impotent while the very foundations on which it itself rested were +destroyed. One illusion went.</p> + +<p>Then again, during the war unorganized private production failed. +Publicly organized production was immensely successful. Governments the +world over showed that the industrial mechanism could be made to run +faster and turn out more than ever before. The illusion that business +was a mystery understood only by initiates, the men "'big' financially," +was shaken.</p> + +<p>After the war was over the government organization for regulating +production was abandoned. A period of chaos, rising prices, speculation, +wasteful production, of luxuries, ensued and then a crash. One may +explain all that happened in both cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> on the basis of the war. But +business needed triumphs to restore its old place in the public +consciousness, and it has had instead a catastrophe.</p> + +<p>The weakness of business today is its division. Many financial leaders +saw the depression that would follow peace. Frank A. Vanderlip, for one, +came back from Europe in 1919 full of warnings. He counselled +moderation. He urged deflation instead of further inflation. His advice +was unpopular with those who saw profits from a sudden withdrawal of +wartime restraints. And the consequence of his prudence, according to +what he has told his friends, was his being forced to retire from the +Presidency of the great Wall Street bank of which he had been head.</p> + +<p>Henry Ford, moreover, is a destroyer of old illusions. He "defies +economic laws." He does what business says is impossible. In a day of +high prices he produces at an unprecedentedly low price. He does not cut +wages. He finds a market where there is no market. To lower his costs he +needs cheaper steel than he can buy, so he manufactures it himself +cheaper than the great steelmakers can manufacture it. He operates +independently of the "big business" group. Mr. Morgan sends for him and +he declines to go. He grows vastly rich, proving that all the knowledge +the men "'big' financially" have of the mystery of business is no +knowledge at all, only rules made in their own interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>And business never twice answers the same question in the same way. One +week Mr. Morgan and the international bankers come to Washington and +tell Mr. Harding that American credit must go into foreign trade. The +next week equally "big" bankers from the interior visit the capital and +tell the President that American credit must stay at home developing +American industries. It is the same with the tariff. It is the same with +the taxes. Business is not of one mind about anything.</p> + +<p>A politician recently described business on errands of advice to +Washington. "One bunch of fat boys with high hats and morning coats +comes to Washington. The Administration holds out its nose wishing to be +led by it. The fat boys decline the nose. They are not leading anybody. +In deprecatory manner they say: 'Please drive North. We think that is +the way.' They go. The next day another bunch of fat boys in high hats +and morning coats arrives. Again the offer of the nose. Again the +declination. And this time: 'Please drive South. We're sure that is the +way.'"</p> + +<p>The government strains its ear to catch the word from Wall Street. But +there never was a time when business had less influence at Washington +than now. It is divided in its own mind, it is ruled by second-rate men. +Of two governments that have occupied a place in the popular +consciousness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> government by business and government by parties, I do +not know which is weaker. I do not know which has less unity and +capacity to function, the Republican party or big business.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE SUPER-PRESIDENT GOES DOWN IN THE GENERAL SMASH</h3> + + +<p>When we became doubtful, as pioneering drew to a close, that business +served a social end; when, becoming jealous of its great and +irresponsible power, we started to set up an equal or greater authority +in Washington, we followed the line of least resistance; we did the easy +and obvious thing; we had recourse to a one man government.</p> + +<p>We magnified the office of President and satisfied that primitive +instinct in us which must see the public welfare and the public safety +personified in a single individual, something visible, tangible, +palpable. The President speaks and you read about him in the daily +press; the President poses and you see him in the movies and feel +assured, as in smaller realms under simpler conditions people were able +to see their monarch dressed and equipaged in ways that connected him +with all the permanence of the past, a symbol of stability, wisdom, and +the divine favor.</p> + +<p>If the trappings are lacking, imagination and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> emotions supply their +moral equivalent. Of our little temporary king no one must speak evil; +no voice may be raised in criticism.</p> + +<p>His wife, up till some fourth of March an elderly country woman grown +dull in the monotony of village life or worn with the task of pushing an +unambitious husband forward to power, looking her most natural when in +the frankness of early morning unpreparedness she ran in her apron +across the street to gossip with the wife of a neighbor, becomes to the +awed eyes of Washington women, quite "beautiful." You hear them say it +of every—let us quote the illuminating phrase—every "first lady of the +land."</p> + +<p>When Burke said that aristocracy was the most natural thing in the world +he did not go half far enough. The most natural thing in the world, the +thing which is always repeating itself under no matter whatever form of +government exists, is an autocracy. In national emergencies, in times of +peril, people put their fate in one man's hands; as in the late war when +Mr. Wilson was made by common consent a greater autocrat than any Czar +of all the Russias.</p> + +<p>The herd instinctively follows one authority. The mob is single-headed. +All the traditions of the race lead back toward despotism and it is +easier to revert toward something primitive than to go forward toward +something higher in the scale of development.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>And, moreover, the vital contacts of our lives are with authority +imposed from above. Our childhood is controlled by the autocracy of the +family. Education disposes of our hours, forces our inclinations, +represses our individuality, and turns us out stamped with a uniform +mark, the finished product of its unvarying course. The single head of +the classroom is the teacher. The single head of the school is the +principal, of all the schools the Superintendent.</p> + +<p>More important still, our economic lives are at the disposal of +autocracy. We earn our livings under foremen and managers. Everywhere is +the boss who says to us "Do this or starve." He represents to us not +only authority but wisdom. The organization out of which proceeds to us +the beneficent results of food and clothing operates because he is +endowed with a knowledge which we have not. "He knows about it all, he +knows, he knows."</p> + +<p>In all the essential everyday relations of life we have never been able +to evolve any higher organization than that of the chieftain and his +tribe. We read about democracy in the newspapers; once every two years +or every four years we go through certain motions which vaguely relate +to democracy, and which are not convincing motions.</p> + +<p>Democracy is an artificial edifice imposed upon a society which is in +all other than its political aspects entirely primitive. All our direct +experiences are of one man power. It is the only organization<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> we +actually know at first hand. We trust to it for the means to live. We +revert to it politically whenever it becomes an issue of life and death, +and even in lesser emergencies.</p> + +<p>So it came about that when we determined to have a government at +Washington independent of and better representing the social will, +whatever that might come to be, than the government of business we had +recourse to that one form of rule which is ever present in our +consciousness, the only form under which the race has lived long enough +to have any real faith in it.</p> + +<p>The new social ideal had not sufficiently taken form to utilize all the +complex institutions which existed in this country. Business was at that +time intrenched in Congress. It would have been a huge, an impossible +task, to re-make Congress, especially when no one knew definitely what +purpose should animate the re-making. It was so much easier to find one +man than to find many men. It is so much easier for a people which does +not know where it is going but means to go there to choose one man, and +by an act of faith endow him with the divination of leadership, than it +is to have a national will and express it through numerous +representatives.</p> + +<p>The amplified executive is a sort of blind pool of the national +purposes. Creating an autocracy is an act of faith; democracy is work. +And faith is so much easier than work.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>We did not think of it thus, as an exhibition of political inertia, as a +reversion to an outworn type. On the contrary, we were immensely pleased +with our innovation. As usual the United States had made an immense +contribution to the art of government. We were repeating the race +history of governments, as a child resumes in his life the race history +of the human kind. We had got so far as to evolve that oldest of human +institutions—autocracy, a mild, denatured autocracy. But we were as +proud of it as a boy is when he put on paper with a pencil the very +picture which his stone age ancestor cut laboriously into a walrus +tooth.</p> + +<p>Our President had more power than the King of England, we boasted, more +than the Emperor of Germany. The monarchies of Europe were obsolete +because they preserved autocracy out of the darkness of the Middle Ages. +Our government was in the forefront of progress because it had created +autocracy out of the suffrage of the people.</p> + +<p>And how clever we were with the restrictions of our written constitution +with its exact balance of powers, executive, legislative, and judicial. +The Fathers had builded wiser than they knew in writing an instrument by +which the carefully distributed authority might be well reconcentrated; +as if they were the first to use words whose import depended on the +point of view of those who interpreted them!</p> + +<p>Acres of space in the newspapers were covered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> with gratulatory articles +proving that the dominating executive was the inevitable unifying +principle in our disjointed and not otherwise workable government.</p> + +<p>Ours was a government by parties, so the argument ran, and the President +was the head of his party. As a matter of fact the writers of the +Constitution had not conceived of a government by parties. What they had +in mind was what they had before them in the Constitutional Convention +of which they were a part, a government by the best and ablest men of +the community, who should meet together and select the executive; who +should equally through the state legislature choose the Senators. The +role of job brokers was the last thing they imagined themselves to be +creating. Parties came later. Ours was not originally a government of +parties. It is hardly a government by parties today. So there was +nothing inevitable about this great reason why the Executive should be +the element in our system which would hold it together and make it work.</p> + +<p>Nor until the beginning of this century did it ever occur to us that the +President was the head of his party. The control of the organization had +been in other hands, in Hanna's or Quay's or Cameron's, or divided among +a group of men like these three, who represented the interests of +business in the parties, and often also in the Senate.</p> + +<p>The idea that the executive was the party's head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> was merely a happy +afterthought which was adopted to justify the resort to the line of +least resistance in creating a stronger government at Washington, the +concentration upon one man to represent the national will. We had simply +done what other peoples had so often done in the history of mankind. +When the English wished to weaken the rule of the great barons they +magnified the office of the King. When we wished to get away from the +rule of the barons of business we magnified the office of our elective +King, the President. We invented new reasons for an old expedient.</p> + +<p>And by making the amplified executive the head of his party, which we +did—for the Quays and Hannas speedily disappeared under the new order +and left no successors—we set him to sawing off the limb on which he +sat. If his authority rested on that of his party then to be firm the +authority of the party must be firm. For parties to endure and be strong +there must be a certain quality of permanence about them. They must not +rest upon personalities but on principles and jobs, principles for the +disinterested and for those whose interests are expressed in the +principles, and jobs for those whose interests are less large and +indirect.</p> + +<p>Of parties with the executive as their head nothing remained but their +name. The only nexus there could be between the executive and the mass +of voters was personal. One year a party was Roosevelt, the next year it +was Taft and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> distance between Roosevelt and Taft was the distance +between East and West. A little later it even changed its name and voted +in another column because Roosevelt had adopted a new party name and +gone unto a new column. Four years later it split up and much of it went +to Wilson, who temporarily rallied a personal following just as +Roosevelt had done.</p> + +<p>And because the dispensing of jobs was an unseemly occupation for the +executive we reduced by law the patronage that was available for the +sustenance of parties. Thus we substituted personal caprice for the +permanency of parties and at the same time cut down the practical means +of holding organizations together. At the same time the decay of +government by business left parties no longer an instrument of the +economic will of the nation.</p> + +<p>Thus the executive headship was wholly inconsistent with government by +parties, upon which our magnified President was supposed to rest. A +further inconsistency was that we adopted another theory for +strengthening one man power. This was that the President was the leader +of the people. Have we a government by parties there? Not at all; the +power of the executive rests upon something outside of and superior to +parties.</p> + +<p>If the legislative did not respond to pressure he might "go to the +people," as it was called, through the newspapers and upon the stump. He +might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> discipline the recalcitrant by stirring up public sentiment +against them. He might build up a personal following to such an extent +that his party must have it in order to win. He might encourage the +movement away from parties by attaching people to ideas and measures, +policies that the party had declined to accept. In this theory of +executive power it was conceded that parties were not to be trusted. In +the other it was held that they were a necessary link between the +dissociate branches of government.</p> + +<p>It is no exaggerated notion that executive control of parties +contributed to the disintegration of party government. It is nothing +more than a statement of what actually happened. Roosevelt broke up the +Republican party nationally. He left it with its name covering an +agglomeration of groups and blocs and personal followings, supporters of +various interests difficult to reconcile, whose votes fluctuate from +year to year.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes, the same kind of executive and party leader as governor of +New York, left the Republicans of that state in the hands of the little +local banditti. Mr. La Follette, following the same methods as Governor +of Wisconsin, left no one in that state definitely a Republican or a +Democrat. Every voter there is the personal follower of some chieftain.</p> + +<p>And what virtue is there in the theory that the Executive alone +represents the national point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> view, that he alone speaks "for the +country?" Political inertia always finds good excuses.</p> + +<p>There are reasons why the President should try to represent the country +as a whole, since he is elected in a nationwide balloting. But there is +no reason why he should succeed in representing the country as a whole, +why he should have a national point of view.</p> + +<p>Why should Mr. Harding have a vast understanding of national problems +and a clear sense of the country's will? A little while ago he was a +Senator, and the supposition that the Executive alone has the national +point of view implies that a Senator has not that point of view. Mr. +Harding is chosen President and immediately upon his election by some +magic virtue of his office he is endowed with insight and imagination +which he did not possess as Senator.</p> + +<p>Mr. Harding is a good average President, a typical President, whether of +the United States or of a business corporation, just the kind of man to +put at the head of a going concern where a plodding kind of safeness is +required of the executive. We shall do well, should our standards of +public life remain what they are, if we have three Presidents superior +to Mr. Harding in energy or originality of mind, during the whole of the +coming century. But why should Mr. Harding understand or represent the +national point of view?</p> + +<p>Mr. Harding lived his life in the indolent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> comfortable mental +atmosphere of a small town. His horizon was narrow and there was no +force in him which made him seek to widen it. His public experience +before coming to Washington consisted of brief service in the Ohio State +legislature and a term as Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio. His service in +the Senate at Washington was short and it was beginner's work, +undertaken in the spirit of a man who finds the upper house a pleasant +place in which to pass the latter years of a never strenuous life.</p> + +<p>His point of view on national problems was a second-hand point of view. +He knew about them what his party had said about them, in its platforms, +on the stump, in the press. He accepted the accepted opinions. No magic +wrought by election to the Presidency could make of him or of anyone +else a great representative of the national purpose or endow him or +anyone else with deep understanding of national problems.</p> + +<p>Of recent Presidents Mr. Taft failed so completely to understand his +people and express its will that after four years in office he could +command the support of only two states when seeking re-election. Mr. +Wilson after four years had so far failed that only the incredible +stupidity of his opponents enabled him to succeed himself; and again so +far, that his second term ended in a tragedy. The floundering of Mr. +Harding is apparent to every eye.</p> + +<p>Only under two Presidents has the theory of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> executive domination of the +Government succeeded, and not completely under them. Congress rose +against Mr. Roosevelt in the last year or two of his administration. +Congress was not of Mr. Wilson's party, and was thus out of his control +in the last two years of his administration. Mr. Taft lacked the will to +rule. Mr. Harding is feebler than Mr. Taft, and party authority, one of +the pillars of executive power and responsibility, is now completely +broken down. A system which is successful only half the time cannot be +called workable.</p> + +<p>Let us examine the circumstances under which the Executive was able to +prevail over Congress and effect a limited sort of one man government. +They are not likely soon to repeat themselves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt was an extraordinary personality. Only Andrew Jackson, +among our Presidents, was as picturesque as he, only Andrew Jackson had +a popular following comparable to his.</p> + +<p>Both of them represented strong democratic movements,—Jackson the +extrusion of the landed aristocracy, in favor of the masses, from their +preferred position in our political life; Mr. Roosevelt, the similar +extrusion of the business aristocracy, in favor of the masses from the +preferred position they had gained in our political life. Like +agitations of the political depths, finding expression in personalities +as unusual as those of Jackson and Roosevelt, will give us from time to +time executives who may carry everything before them; but only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +emergencies like this and one other will make the President supreme.</p> + +<p>And even then it is easy to overstate the power of the Executive as it +was exercised by Mr. Roosevelt. The Colonel lived by picturesque +exaggeration. If he went to South America it was to discover a river and +find animals that the eye of man never rested on before or since. He +read more books than it was humanly possible to read and not become a +pallid bookworm. He pursued more interests than mere man can have. He +exercised daily as only a pugilist exercises briefly when in training.</p> + +<p>He had the gusto of the greatest amateur of all time and enjoyed the +immunity which is always granted to amateurs, that of never being +measured by professional standards. When you might have been noting a +weakness in one direction he was diverting you by an enormous exhibition +of versatility in another. He had the capacity of seeming, and the +semblance was never penetrated. He seemed to bestride Washington like a +Colossus. Actually his rule was one long compromise with Aldrich and +Cannon, the business leaders of Congress, which he represented as a +glorious triumph over them.</p> + +<p>One man government was developed much further under Mr. Wilson than +under Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harding's predecessor entered office as the +expression of that movement toward a government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> based on numbers rather +than on wealth, which the Colonel had so imperfectly effected. There had +been a reaction under Taft; there was a new determination under Wilson, +and a new concentration on the executive.</p> + +<p>Poor, bookish, without the friendships in the business world which Mr. +Roosevelt had had, having few contacts with life, Mr. Wilson embraced +the idea of putting business in its place passionately, where Mr. +Roosevelt played with it as he played with everything else.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wilson was by temperament an autocrat. An illustration of how +personal was his government was his treatment of his enemies. His +bitterness against Huntington Wilson, the Republican Ambassador to +Mexico, is well known. A year or two after the dispute was over, +Huntington Wilson's son came up for examination to enter the Consular +service. He passed at the top of the list. President Wilson heard of his +success and directed that he should receive no appointment. He carried +his enmity to the second generation. The law which would have given +young Mr. Wilson a place meant nothing under his personal government.</p> + +<p>As Anatole France says of Robespierre, he "<i>était optimiste qui croyait +á la vertue</i>." Those who are "optimists and believe in virtue," remarks +the French author, end by killing men. Wilson in a revolution would have +conducted a Terror, as indeed during the war he did conduct a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +legal terror among pacifists and radicals. Roosevelt belonged to the +other school in the conduct of affairs which Anatole France praises +because it never forgets that men are "<i>des mauvais singes</i>." In a +revolution Roosevelt would have cut off no more heads than would be +necessary to make a good show.</p> + +<p>Moreover, when Mr. Wilson entered office his party had been long out of +power. Its leaders in the House and Senate were not firmly established. +Unlike Cannon and Aldrich, of the Roosevelt day, they did not represent +business in the national legislature. They had no authority except the +purely factitious authority created by the accident of seniority. They +were easily dominated from the White House.</p> + +<p>Coming into power at such a moment, possessing such a temperament, +representing such a popular movement, Mr. Wilson readily became the most +perfect example of the concentrated executive that we have yet had. But +even his one man government was attacked from the outset. His +personality proved repellent. An intellectual is so unfamiliar an object +in America as to seem almost a monstrosity, and his ascendancy would not +have lasted beyond two years if the war had not come.</p> + +<p>War is the other great cause that leads to autocracy in popular +governments. In times of common danger we revert to the herd with the +single leadership. We resort to the only form of rule of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> we have +any experience in our daily lives, the only form in which the race has +yet developed any lasting faith. From the time when war threatened, with +the invasion of Belgium, till the time when it ended with the armistice, +Mr. Wilson became what any President may become under like +circumstances, what Mr. Wilson's temperament especially fitted him to +become—an absolute dictator.</p> + +<p>When we think of the powerful executive as the natural development of +the American system, imparting that unity to our government which the +makers of the Constitution in their zeal for checks and balances refused +to give it, we are over-impressed by the phenomena of Roosevelt and +Wilson and do not make sufficient allowances for the conditions which +made their power inevitable. So impossible is it for authority to remain +permanently in the hands of the executive that we are now witnessing its +spontaneous movement away from the White House—toward, well for the +moment I should say, toward nowhere.</p> + +<p>A distinguished alienist tells me that the desire for power over your +fellow man is an unmistakable sign of paranoia, not necessarily paranoia +amounting to insanity, but the same kind of paranoia which makes history +amusing. If that is true, then we are in an era of perfect sanity at +Washington. No one, no one, in the White House, in the Capitol, in Wall +Street, the capitol of business, or back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> among the home folks, as far +as I can learn, wants power—and responsibility.</p> + +<p>The picture I have drawn, quoting a bright young observer at the capital +of what happens when Business arrives in Washington is the picture of +our whole present national political organization. "A bunch of +tall-hatted fat boys comes. The governmental nose is thrust out awaiting +the guiding hand. The guiding hand is put unostentatiously behind the +back." It is the same when the organ of leading is extended from the +White House for the hand of leadership at the Capitol, or, as happens, +as often the organ of leading at the Capitol awaits the hand of +leadership at the White House.</p> + +<p>Power is in transition and we do much inconsistent thinking about where +it is and where it should be. We deliberately elected a weak executive, +to retrieve the blessed days of McKinley, the old equilibrium and +co-ordination of the equal and co-ordinate branches of our government. +Yet when things go badly in Congress, as they mostly do, the critics +exclaim that the President should be firm and "assert his authority" on +the hill. Mr. Harding himself said, over and over again, "This is no one +man job at Washington." Yet we read that his face assumes a "determined +expression"—I have myself never seen it—and he sends for the leaders +in Congress.</p> + +<p>We haven't executive domination and we haven't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> anything in its place. +We voted to go back to the nineties, but we haven't got there. There is +no Mark Hanna speaking for business and for party to make the system +work. We have the willessness of the blessed days in our National +Heartbreak House, but we haven't the will somewhere else to act and +direct. Not even seven million majority is enough to bring back the +past. In spite of "landslides" the course is always forward, and I use +"forward" not in the necessarily optimistic sense of those who were once +so sure of Progress.</p> + +<p>The initiative, so far as there is any, has passed to Congress.</p> + +<p>And so far as I can see, it is likely to remain with Congress, until +some new turn of events brings us back the strong executive. For, after +all, Congress chose Mr. Harding. The Senators picked him at Chicago. +With party bosses gone, they are about all that remains of the party, +and there is no reason why they should not go on naming Presidents. And +the power of presidents will not rise much above its source.</p> + +<p>The autocratic President goes inevitably the way its prototype the +autocrat went. The loins that produce them are sufficiently fertile. +Primogeniture brought forth feeble kings. The nominating system called +on for a great man every four years yields many feeble ones. There will +be many Hardings to one Roosevelt or Wilson. Party government which +might reinforce a feeble president is weak.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> Government by business has +lost its confidence and authority. The great discovery of the first +decade of this century for making this government of ours work is +already in the discard.</p> + +<p>So at a critical moment when government by Progress and government by +business have broken down, government by one man at Washington has also +gone. The war made the autocratic executive in the person of Mr. Wilson +intolerable. It also destroyed the basis for national concentration upon +the executive.</p> + +<p>We need a new picture in our heads of what government should be, what +its limits should be when it faces such vital problems as interfering +with God's time, and where its authority should center. We have none.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>LOOKING FOR ULTIMATE WISDOM—IN THE BOSOM OF THÉRÈSE</h3> + + +<p>We now pursue further the search for authority. We shall surely find +"divine right" somewhere, now that business has lost it. Someone +certainly has the final word about the pictures to put in our heads. Ah! +there is the public, the imputation of a miraculous quality to whose +opinion has a curious history.</p> + +<p>Everybody agrees that we owe most of the pleasant illusions upon which +this democracy of ours is based to Rousseau. This Swiss sentimentalist +about humanity, whose ideas have so profoundly affected the history of +the last century and a half, was a convinced believer that perfect good +sense resided in the bosom of the natural man, the man "born free and +equal" of our Declaration of Independence.</p> + +<p>Rousseau could find this simple wisdom which was his delight in the most +unexpected places. He describes his mistress Thérèse with whom he lived +many happy years: "Her mind is what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> nature has made it; cultivation is +without effect. I do not blush to avow that she has never known how to +read, although she writes passably. When I went to live in the Rue Neuve +des Petits Champs I had opposite my windows a clock face on which I +tried during several months to teach her to tell time. She can scarcely +do it even now. She has never known in their order the twelve months of +the year, and she does not know a single figure in spite of all the +pains I have taken to explain them to her.... But this person, so +limited and, if you wish, so stupid, has excellent judgment on occasions +of difficulty. Often in my troubles she has seen what I did not see +myself; she has given me the best advice to follow. She has pulled me +out of dangers into which I rushed blindly.... The heart of my Thérèse +was the heart of an angel. (<i>Le cœur de ma Thérèse était celui d'un +ange.</i>)"</p> + +<p>It would be amusing to trace our belief in the good sense of man, in the +wisdom and justice of public opinion, back to a philosopher's delight in +a female moron; but that would be too great a paradox for a serious +discussion of today's crisis in popular government. The truth probably +is that Rousseau reached <i>a priori</i> the conclusions about the sound +sense of the simple and natural man that captivated a society so simple +and natural as our own was in the eighteenth century, and then stumbled +upon such convincing evidence in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> person of Thérèse that he had to +keep it by him all the rest of his days.</p> + +<p>And where after all has there been found any better evidence for our +belief in the soundness and justice of public opinion than was furnished +by the unlettered and unteachable Thérèse, who had "le cœur d'un ange" +and "devant les dames du plus haut rang, devant les grands et les +princes, ses sentiments, son bon sens, ses réponses et sa conduite lui +out tiré l'estime universelle"?</p> + +<p>To accept the doctrine of the rightness of public opinion you must +believe that there resides in every man, even in the most unpromising +man, of the mental level of Thérèse, "si bornée et, si l'on veut, si +stupide," the capacity to be, like her, "d'un conseil excellent dans les +occasions difficiles."</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the rightness of public opinion, however, never required +proof. It was a political necessity. The world at the time when modern +democracies had their birth accepted government only because it rested +upon divine right. The government of men by mere men has always been +intolerable.</p> + +<p>The new democracies which were to take the place of the old kingdoms had +to have some sanction other than the suffrages of the people. Room had +to be found in them somewhere for divine right. Those who established +the modern system could never have sold self-government to the people as +self government. There had to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> some miracle about it, something +supernatural, like that marvel which turned a mere man into a King and +gave him that power of healing by touch which was exercised in Galilee, +so that the laying on of his hands cured the king's evil.</p> + +<p>The miracle was accomplished somewhere in the process through which your +opinion and my opinion and Thérèse's opinion became public opinion. Just +as the anointment or the coronation turned a mere human being by a +miracle into the chosen of God ruling by divine right, so by some +transmutation which does not take place before the eyes, mere human +opinion becomes itself the choice of God, ruling by divine right.</p> + +<p>If you doubt that the founders of modern democracy had to carry over +into their systems the old illusions about divine right, read what +Thomas Jefferson, more or less a free thinker, quoted by Mr. Walter +Lippmann in his <i>Public Opinion</i>, has to say about the divine basis for +popular government: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people +of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His +peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in +which He keeps alive that sacred fire which might otherwise escape from +the earth."</p> + +<p>That "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue" was public opinion. +Nothing was lost of the sanctions of monarchic government when we +changed to popular government.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>Since the days of Jefferson we have ceased to be an agricultural people +and we can no longer derive the authority of our government from the +Rousseauist notion that the farmer, being near to nature, thrusting his +hands into the soil, was the choice of God and ruled by a kind of divine +right. But "aucune réligion n'est jamais morte, ni ne mourra jamais."</p> + +<p>Let us examine the doctrine of Jefferson. Public opinion ruled by divine +right because, in this country and in his day, it was the opinion of +farmers, who were "the chosen people of God whose breasts He has made +the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."</p> + +<p>When we ceased to be a nation of farmers did we abandon the basis of our +government in divine right? Not in the least. We broadened our ground to +cover the added elements of the community and went along further with +Rousseau than Jefferson had need to do; we said that the breasts of all +men "He has made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine +virtue." The art of uncovering their substantial and genuine virtue, +this quality in Thérèse which drew down upon her universal esteem for +her good sense and her sound sentiments, is the art of arriving at +public opinion.</p> + +<p>The legend of public opinion is thus accounted for; first, you will +observe, it was politically necessary to assert the inspiration of +public opinion, for divine right had to reside somewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> Second, in a +democracy the press and public men had to flatter the mass of voters and +readers by declaring on every possible occasion that wisdom reposed in +their breasts. And third, the public mind differed so from the ordinary +thinking mind that, to put its conclusions in a favorable light, men had +to assume some supernatural quality, some divine "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue."</p> + +<p>The public did not think, in the ordinary sense, yet its decisions were +more right than the carefully elaborated decisions of those who did +think; the wonder of Thérèse over again, who "si bornée et si stupide" +gave such excellent advice on difficult occasions. No processes by which +results were reached could be perceived by the trained mind. The mystery +of the public mind was as great as the mystery of intuitions is to the +logical or the mystery of poetry is to the prosaic. Clearly, a miracle; +clearly, a deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.</p> + +<p>When modern democracy got its start, kings by their folly had shaken +faith in their divine right. In a similar way at this moment, public +opinion by its excesses has made men question whether any "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue" has been placed in human breasts upon +which states may rely for justice and wisdom.</p> + +<p>Walter Lippmann's book, <i>Public Opinion</i>, with its destructive analysis +of the public mind, is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> symptom of those doubts with which the war has +left us. The years from 1914 on furnished the most perfect exhibition of +public opinion and its workings that the world has ever seen. You saw on +a grand scale its miraculous capacity for instant formation and, if you +are sufficiently detached now, you look back and doubt whether what was +revealed was a "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."</p> + +<p>Both sides to the conflict resembled nothing so much as prehistoric +tribes meeting accidentally in the night and, precipitated into panic, +fighting in the belief that each was being attacked by the other.</p> + +<p>Public opinion in France and England felt that the war was defensive. +Public opinion in Germany was equally sure that Germany was only +defending herself. Either the German Thérèse or the French Thérèse and +the English Thérèse and the American Thérèse must have been wrong. The +fight could not have been defensive on both sides. And if Thérèse is +ever so wrong as this, the whole case of the divine rightness of public +opinion falls.</p> + +<p>And not only do we know that some Thérèse, perhaps all the Thérèses, +made a mistake in this instance, but we have come to feel that whenever +danger arises Thérèse is inevitably wrong; her mind, such as it is, +closes up and she fails to show those <i>sentiments</i> and that <i>bon sens</i> +which drew down the applause of the princes and the persons <i>du haut +rang</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> who have been praising the deposit of virtue that she carries in +her breast.</p> + +<p>We have watched the course of Thérèse confronted by other and smaller +fears since the close of the war, and we have reached the conclusion +that Thérèse always reacts a certain way. In that large range of +situations which may be artfully presented to her simple mind as perils +she is no longer <i>d'un conseil excellent</i>; her heart <i>d'un ange</i> +hardens; she abandons her babies quite unfeelingly at the hospital of +the <i>Nouveaux Nés</i>.</p> + +<p>Therefore you do not reach the "deposit for virtue" by simply employing +an intelligence unencumbered by mental processes. You must at least +assure that intelligence against fear, a serious limitation upon the +doctrine of an infallible public opinion.</p> + +<p>Students of public opinion will for a long time go back to the period of +the war for their materials. Opinion was then unmistakable. The methods +by which it was formed were clear. In times of great peril men throw off +their polite disguises and are frank; so too are institutions.</p> + +<p>The making of opinion became an official function in which we all +co-operated. We bound ourselves voluntarily not to publish and not to +regard any information inconsistent with the state of mind which it was +deemed expedient to create and maintain. We probably always in the +forming of opinion tacitly impose voluntary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> censorships, but they are +so habitual, so unconscious, so covered with traditional hypocrisy, that +it is difficult to bring them into the light.</p> + +<p>Conscious self-deception to the good end of keeping ourselves united and +determined was during the war a great virtue. Playing upon prejudice, +rousing the depths of the primitive mind in man, was a laudable act of +patriotism.</p> + +<p>What happened then was only an exaggeration of what happens all the +time, for war makes no new contributions to the art of self-government. +In war we merely throw off the restraints of peace and impose others +which operate in the reverse direction. In peace we are shamefaced about +direct killing; in war we brag of it. In peace we are shamefaced about +manufacturing public opinion; in war it is our patriotic duty.</p> + +<p>No, war has made us rather doubtful about Thérèse. After all Rousseau +was a prejudiced witness. When you take to your bosom a lady who cannot +learn to tell time by the clock, you have to make out a case for her—or +for yourself. When like Jefferson and his successors you take to your +bosom the public, you have to make out a case for it, for the deposit +for substantial and genuine virtue that you rely upon.</p> + +<p>The war revealed at once the immense power and the immense dangers of +public opinion when its full force is aroused and one hundred million +people come to think—thinking is not the word—to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> feel, as one man. +Minorities, the great corrective in democracy, disappeared. They had +their choice of going to jail or bowing to the general will.</p> + +<p>Few realized this alternative, so irresistible was the mob impulse, +awakened by the sense of common danger, even to individuals ordinarily +capable of maintaining their detachment. The primitive instinct of +self-preservation subdued all capacity for independent thinking, so that +one who has ordinarily the habit of making up his own mind, a most +difficult habit to maintain in modern society, can not look back on +himself during the war without a sense of shame. Romain Rolland, in +<i>Clérambeault</i>, pictures the devastating effect of public opinion at its +mightiest upon the individual conscience.</p> + +<p>The mechanism by which this state of mind was created was unconcealed. +The government reserved to itself the right to suppress truth or to put +out untruth for the common good. Private organizations of endless number +co-operated to this laudable end. The press submitted itself to a +voluntary censorship, passing the responsibility for what it printed +over to society whose general end of maintaining unity for the real or +imaginary necessities of self-defense it served. A lynch law of opinion +was established by common consent.</p> + +<p>What went on during the war goes on, though less openly and less +formidably, all of the time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Everyone realizes the immense power of +public opinion. Many seek to direct its formation. The government +conducts all of the time a vast propaganda, always with a certain favor +of the press.</p> + +<p>We submit always to a certain voluntary censorship, not so conscious as +that which existed during the war but none the less real. We receive +upon the whole the information which is good for us to receive. We are +all a little afraid of public opinion, its tyranny, its excesses, its +blind tendencies. We do not find it, as Jefferson thought we should, a +"deposit for substantial and genuine virtue," and we are all more or +less consciously trying to make it one; that is the process of rendering +modern democracy workable; but we may not be all unprejudiced about what +the deposit should be or scrupulous about the means of improving it.</p> + +<p>The part which the press plays in this process is peculiar. When editors +or correspondents meet together the speaker addresses them invariably +as, "You makers of public opinion," but the last responsibility which +journalism cares to assume is the making of public opinion.</p> + +<p>This disinclination began with the exclusion of the editor's opinion +from the news columns. Gradually, it extended to the exclusion of his +opinion from the editorial pages and finally to its exclusion from his +own mind. I am speaking only of tendencies, not of their complete +realization, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> there are notable exceptions among the greater dailies +of this country.</p> + +<p>This movement is at its strongest in the nation's capital, for official +Washington likes to live in an intellectual vacuum, and journalism +strives successfully to please. With the world crashing about his ears +the editor of the <i>Star</i>, the best newspaper in the capital, finds this +to say:</p> + +<p>"The Crown Prince of Japan and the Prince of Wales are young men +destined for great parts in world affairs. They are now qualifying for +their work.</p> + +<p>"Last year the former took his first look around in the occidental +world. He was everywhere most cordially received, and returned home +informed and refreshed by what he had seen and heard. His vision, +necessarily, was considerably enlarged.</p> + +<p>"The latter is now taking his first look around in the oriental world. +In a few days he will land in Japan and be the guest of the country for +a month. The arrangements for his entertainment are elaborate, and +insure him with a delightful and a profitable visit. That he will return +home informed and refreshed by his travels is certain.</p> + +<p>"The war has produced a new world, which in many things must be ordered +in new ways. Young men for action; and here are two young men who when +they get into action and into their stride will be prominent and +important in the world picture."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>But if a newspaper rigidly excludes its editor's opinions from its +columns, it is singularly hospitable to all other opinions. The +President twice a week may edit the papers of the entire country, or Mr. +Hughes may do it every day,—or Mr. Hoover or Mr. Daugherty for that +matter, even having extended to him the privilege of anonymity which +editors used to keep to themselves, as a device for giving force and +effect to their ideas.</p> + +<p>The President "sees the press" Tuesdays and Fridays, volunteering +information or answering questions. Mr. Hughes holds daily receptions. +Everyone else big enough to break into print follows the same practice.</p> + +<p>A curious modesty prevails. Every public man loves to see his name in +the newspapers, yet no one of them at these conferences will assume +responsibility for what he says. All of them resort to the editorial +practice of anonymity.</p> + +<p>The rule is that the correspondents must not quote Mr. Harding or Mr. +Hughes or anyone else.</p> + +<p>They must not write "Mr. Harding said" or "Mr. Hughes said." They must +print what Mr. Harding or Mr. Hughes said as a fact; that is, they must +put the authority of their paper behind it or, if they doubt, they must +assign for it "a high authority," thus putting the authority of their +paper behind it at one remove.</p> + +<p>The editor, having excluded his own opinions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> from his news columns, +opens his news columns to Mr. Harding's or Mr. Hughes's opinions, giving +no guide to the reader whether he is printing fact or opinion, and, if +obviously opinion, as to whose opinion it is.</p> + +<p>The rule is, nothing but news in the news column. The news is, "Mr. +Harding said so and so." But what is printed is, "so and so is a fact" +or, "so and so the paper believes on unimpeachable authority to be a +fact."</p> + +<p>This official control of news columns goes further. Not only, according +to the rules, must the source of certain information be regarded as a +confidence but essential facts themselves may not be disclosed.</p> + +<p>One of the most remarkable uses of the news columns to create public +opinion was that of Attorney-General Palmer whose several announcements +of red revolution in the United States startled the country two years +ago. A series of sensational plots was described. Very soon every +intelligent correspondent felt sure that Mr. Palmer was largely +propaganding. But to say so would have been to violate that law against +the expression of opinion in news columns, so essential to the truth and +accuracy of our press. Moreover, if my memory is correct, somewhere in +the series the Attorney-General told the press, in confidence, that he +was putting forth his stories of revolution for a purpose. But one does +not print confidences.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this case the news was that Attorney-General Palmer was issuing +stories of discovered revolutionary plots to combat a certain radicalism +in the labor movement. As printed it was that Attorney-General Palmer +said—he permitted his name to be used—that he had discovered +revolutionary plots.</p> + +<p>But the uncritical reader does not ask himself whether the +Attorney-General may not be lying. And even if he were inclined to do so +the headline throws him off his guard, for in the limited space +available for captions, mere assertions tend to become facts. As it +reached the reader's mind the fact that Mr. Palmer was avowedly issuing +propaganda became the fact that evidences of a great Bolshevist plot +against our institutions were being discovered almost daily.</p> + +<p>There are disadvantages in the official editing of news columns. The +official does not always escape by shifting responsibility to the +editor. The British during the Washington Conference introduced an +improvement. They put out propaganda which had no authority at all. This +the newspapers either had to leave out or to print on their own +authority.</p> + +<p>Lord Riddell had "no official connection with the British delegation." +He had moreover a perfect alibi. There was Sir Arthur Willert, the +official spokesman, who knew nothing and told nothing. Riddell's was a +private enterprise. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> was just a journalist willing to share with +other journalists what information he collected. Just a journalist? +Well, it was true that "Lloyd George had asked him to stay on" when he +was on the point of departing. But that was a confidence and under the +rules the press does not print confidences.</p> + +<p>Riddell's disclosures were perfectly timed. The best of them came out in +the morning when afternoon correspondents must either rush them through +as facts—they could not even say "on the highest authority"—or explain +to their editors why they had been beaten by their rivals.</p> + +<p>Riddell is one of the British Premier's intimates. A lawyer turned +newspaper proprietor, he brings out the <i>News of the World</i>, a London +Sunday publication, sensational and trashy, of which 3,500,000 copies or +some such preposterous number are sold. He started in during the war as +a spokesman for the British Premier. He kept it up at the Paris +Conference. And at Washington he scored his greatest success.</p> + +<p>What he had said at his seance was, "Now, of course, I don't know, but I +imagine the Conference will do thus and so." He was delightfully +irresponsible, having no official connection. He could leak when he had +anything to leak. He could guess, near the truth or far from the truth, +for, after all, he was only "imagining." He joked. He indulged in +buffoonery. He put out propaganda<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> when he wished. But he mixed enough +truth with it all so that the correspondents thronged his meetings. So +far as there was publicity at the Conference, he was that publicity.</p> + +<p>There was nothing of the great man about him. He did not pretend to be a +statesman. He did not take himself seriously. He reached out for his +public in the same undress way that he does in his Sunday newspaper. +"Ex-tra-ter-ri-to-ri-al-ity," he would say, "that's a long word. I never +heard it before I came here." "Kow Loon, where is the place anyway?" You +felt that for the British Empire these places and issues were +trivialities.</p> + +<p>He was familiar, quite inoffensively. "The highly intelligent seal of +the Associated Press—was it Mr. Hood here?—must have been under the +table in the committee room when he got this story. He knows more about +it than I do." He was humorous. "The Conference means to do good and, +according to the well known rule—what is it?—Oh, yes! 'Cast your bread +upon the waters'—and by—er—a certain repercussion we all expect to +benefit."</p> + +<p>It was not said cynically. It was no effort to be funny. It was natural +and inevitable. Lord Riddell himself did good to the press, and by a +certain repercussion the British Empire benefited. It was a publicity +"stunt" that has never been equalled. Never before did one man have +world opinion so much in his hands. Only Riddell's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> personality, his +friendliness, his apparent disingenuousness, his trifling, enabled him +to exercise his power—these and the immense demand for publicity, where +aside from his there was little.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>LORD RIDDELL</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The hospitality of news columns is not extended to officials alone. A +vast industry second only to that of news collecting has been built up +for the purpose of conveying opinions to readers in the guise of news. +Its constant growth is a proof of its success.</p> + +<p>The reason for the opening of newspaper columns to it is commercial. A +variety of interests and opinions tends to reflect itself, as at Paris, +in a multiplicity of newspapers. The American newspaper proprietor has +avoided competition by steadily restricting the expression of opinion +first in the news columns and then on the editorial page, so as to +offend as few of his readers as possible, and then opening his news +columns to opinions which he could not approve on his editorial page, +provided they could be disguised as news.</p> + +<p>But the faults of public opinion as a governing force do not spring from +an uncritical journalism, conducted in haste and under compulsion to be +interesting rather than adequate, too little edited by its editors and +too much edited by others. The trouble with Thérèse is her lack of mind. +In spite of her good sense and habit of giving excellent advice she is +<i>bornée et, si l'on veut, stupide</i>. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> do not find in her what +Rousseau was convinced he found in her, "a deposit for substantial and +genuine virtue."</p> + +<p>We know more about the public mind today than Jefferson did when he +wrote about it. We have studied the psychology of the mob and we know +that the psychology of the public is not different. Like the mind of +Thérèse, the public mind has never grown up; with this difference, that +the mind of Thérèse never could grow up and the mind of the public, we +hope, will.</p> + +<p>The public mind is young. Only for a very few years in the history of +the race has there been any such thing as a conscious public. Jefferson +was right in thinking that its mind was not the sum of the individual +minds: nevertheless, it is not a "deposit for virtue." Men act in a mass +quite differently from the way they act as individuals, only +unfortunately there is not any necessary divine rightness about the way +they act: there is often divine wrongness.</p> + +<p>We have built up the machinery for converting one hundred million widely +scattered people into a public, for giving it a sense of community, but +we have not at an equal rate built up a public mind.</p> + +<p>With the telegraph, the wireless telephone, the standardized press, the +instant bulletin going everywhere, we can stir the whole people as a +mob, make it revert into a frightened herd, but we can not make it +think.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>The public is too young to have a developed mind. In a hundred +generations it may have one.</p> + +<p>This experiment in democracy is conducted in the faith that it will have +one, that the mass of mankind may be lifted up so that there will be as +much freedom of thinking in a democratic society as there once was in an +aristocratic society. It is the bravest experiment in history but its +success is afar off, Rousseau's belief in Thérèse to the contrary +notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>In the present state of undeveloped mind and overdeveloped machinery of +communication public opinion is a great negative force. It does nothing +constructive. It can only be thoroughly aroused by a suggestion of +danger. Statesmen are both afraid of it and despise it, and between +contempt and fear are reduced to temporary expedients.</p> + +<p>So that when we speak of government by public opinion we speak of +something that has been as badly shaken as government by business, or +executive government or party government or any one of the various +governments upon which we once relied. The war has made it almost as +intolerable as it made autocracy, as practiced by Mr. Wilson.</p> + +<p>Shall official Washington turn to public opinion as its guide? Official +Washington is busy all the time with all the arts it used during the war +shaping public opinion to its own ends. It must have been hard for a +king's minister to believe in the divinity of the monarch he was +gulling. And at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> any moment public opinion may belong to Mr. Hearst.</p> + +<p>This new ruler by divine right is not going to be so easy to dethrone as +his predecessors. No new Rousseau will discern a new Thérèse. Mr. Walter +Lippmann would set up in its place the expert by divine right, but the +expert is a palpable pretender.</p> + +<p>The best hope for the present moment is perhaps to divide the public. +Minorities based on interest will at least be constructive. Organized, +they may offer an effective resistance. Out of them may come a +development of the public mind.</p> + +<p>If Jefferson were writing today he might say that the farm bloc +contained the "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." At any rate +it tills the soil.</p> + +<p>If we break up the threatening mass which the war has taught us to fear, +there might be organized a thinkers' bloc. Thinking in this country +certainly needs a bloc.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>SHALL WE FIND OUR SALVATION SITTING, LIKE MR. MELLON, ON A PILE OF +DOLLARS</h3> + + +<p>The conditions which face Mr. Harding are like those which face the +administrator of a corporation left by its old head and creator to the +direction of an incompetent son. The young man is the nominal master of +the business. He lacks confidence in himself and what is worse still his +wife and mother lack confidence in him. They have fortified him with a +brother-in-law as a right hand man. His brother-in-law knows little of +the business and can never forget that he is the creature of his sister +and her mother-in-law.</p> + +<p>The administrator of this corporation wishes to obtain a decision upon +policy. The proprieties require him to consult its nominal head. The +young man, unsure of himself, must talk it over with the mentor whom his +wife and mother have provided. He in turn proves no final authority but +must discuss the question with his sister. Ultimately the widow who owns +most of the stock must be approached. She hires others to run the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +property, wonders why they do not run it. The very fact that the others +could reach no decision makes her cautious about reaching one herself. +The administrator goes vainly about this circle seeking for a "yes" or +"no."</p> + +<p>The government was simple when the public had faith in the social +purposes of business and public opinion did not differ greatly from +business opinion. Parties reflected the will of business. Authority was +centered. Whether you said it resided in parties or in business or in +public opinion made little difference. There was substantial agreement. +A "yes" or "no" was easy.</p> + +<p>Suppose Mr. Harding should be in doubt, as he is so often—today. He +asks himself what is party opinion, what is business opinion, what is +public opinion, or what is the opinion of some powerful minority which +may turn an election against him.</p> + +<p>His party has no opinion; it exists by virtue of its capacity to think +nothing about everything and thus avoid dissensions. Business is of two +minds and is moreover afraid of the public. It will assume no +responsibility. Public opinion, what is it? Mr. Hearst's newspapers? Or +the rest of the press? Or the product of the propaganda conducted from +Washington? Or something that Mr. Harding may create himself if he will? +Minority opinion is definite, but is it safe? Where is authority?</p> + +<p>A return to those happy days when authority did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> center somewhere, when +in conducting the business you did not have to run around the whole +circle seeing the young man, his wife, his brother-in-law, and the widow +who inherited the property, is our constant dream. Let us get back to +party government, exclaimed Mr. Harding; so the nation voted to do so, +only to find there were neither parties nor party government.</p> + +<p>Let us, then, it is suggested, found some new party that will "stand for +something," that will synthesize in one social aim, the common element +in the aims of various interests into which the country is divided. But +no one can point out the common basis, the principle which the new party +shall advocate.</p> + +<p>Let us then have a better informed public opinion. Mr. Walter Lippmann +in his new book upon the subject, despairing of the press, would put the +making of public opinion in the hands of experts, collecting the truth +with the impartiality of science.</p> + +<p>We seek unity as perhaps the builders of Babel sought it after the +confusion of tongues fell upon them.</p> + +<p>One favorite hope of attaining it is through a new synthesis of business +and politics. Government by business had worked. Let us return to Eden. +Let us elect a business man President. One may substitute for President +in this last sentence Governor or Mayor or Senator or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> Congressman, for +whatever the office is, this recipe is always suggested.</p> + +<p>Thus, so it is piously hoped, we may get back to those good old times +before we builded for ourselves this Babel, a government that was +independent of business, parties that were independent of everything +under the sun, voters that were independent of parties, a press that was +independent, a propaganda that was independent, and blocs that knew no +rule but their own.</p> + +<p>Elect the business man to office, so it is felt, and you will have an +important synthesis, an old and tried one, one that worked, business and +politics. You will do more. You will import into public life all that +wonderful efficiency which we read about in the <i>American Magazine</i>, +that will to power, that habit of getting things done, that instant +capacity for decision which we romantically associate with commercial +life. All this is in the minds of those who urge this method of +achieving unity.</p> + +<p>We have no greater national illusion than the business man illusion. In +any other country a business man is just a business man; in America he +is a demigod. Golden words, as Mark Twain said, flow out of his mouth. +He performs miracles. He has erected a great industry and amassed a +large fortune. Therefore he would make a great public official. We never +think of him as merely a specialist having a narrow aptitude for heaping +up money.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>The reasoning about the business man is this. Success, real success, +comes to the jack of all trades, a major premise handed down from +pioneer days. "A" is a real success, for he has made several millions. +Therefore "A" is a jack of all trades. Therefore he would be as great a +President as he is a shoe button manufacturer.</p> + +<p>We owe the business-man illusion to the pioneers. In a few years they +subjected a continent to our uses. They accumulated for themselves +wealth such as the world had never seen. The nation does not think of +them as the luckiest of a generation facing such virgin resources as +existed on no other continent, at a moment when means of transportation +such as the world had never seen before, and machinery for manufacture +without parallel were in their hands. The marvelous element was not the +opportunity but the men.</p> + +<p>One day they were telegraphers, day laborers, railroad section hands and +the next they were colossal figures of American enterprise. As their +like existed nowhere else they became the American type. They +established the tradition of American business.</p> + +<p>It has been a tradition profitable to keep alive. The men who by luck, +by picking other men's wits, or by the possession of a special talent, +useful only in a society like our own, grow vastly rich, love to read +how wonderful they are. For their delectation a journalism has grown up +to celebrate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> epic of their marvelous industry, resourcefulness, +efficiency, their god-like insight into the hearts of men; whose praises +they pay for liberally in the disposition of advertising. Young men who +would be great read this journalism diligently looking for the secret of +success. Reading it they resolve not to keep their minds upon five +o'clock when the closing whistle blows but to become rich by industry +and thrift like its great exemplars; who profit by it not only in having +their own praises sung but in getting more work out of their servants.</p> + +<p>So much virtue rests upon the business-man illusion that no one would +lay an impious finger on it. I merely analyze it to exhibit the contents +of our minds when we say "elect a business man President," and to +present the picture of a demigod out of the <i>American Magazine</i> in the +White House, and a new synthesis of business and politics.</p> + +<p>Moreover, we let ourselves be misled by the habit of speaking of the +"public business" and accepting without examination the analogy which +the word suggests. We say to ourselves, "Well, since government is a +business, the proper person to be in charge of it is a business man." +But it is not business in any exact sense of the word. If the product of +the operation were a mere bookkeeping profit or even mere bookkeeping +economies then it might properly be called a business. But that which +business efficiency in office, if it could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> really be obtained, might do +well, is the least part of self-government, whose main end must for a +long time be the steady building up of the democratic ideal.</p> + +<p>But the electing of business men to office does not build up this ideal. +On the contrary it is a confession of failure in democracy, an admission +that public life in it does not develop men fit for its tasks, that for +capacity it is necessary to seek in another world and summon an +outsider; establish a sort of receivership in self-government.</p> + +<p>And it is a blind sort of receivership. We know little about business +men except the noisy disclosures of their press agents. "X" has made a +million dollars. If we no longer say, as in the days of Mark Twain, that +golden words flow from his mouth, we accept his wealth as proof positive +of his extraordinary capacity for affairs. There is no going behind the +fact of his vast accumulation, for business is conducted in secret. The +law recognizes that it has to be, keeping in confidence facts disclosed +through income tax returns.</p> + +<p>When we consider a successful business man for office no allowance can +be made for the fact that the intelligence responsible for his success +may not have been his as head of a successful organization. In no way +may it be asked and answered whether all the original force which was in +him may not have been spent before he is suggested for office. Senator +Knox was an instance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> of spent force, his energy and ambition being gone +when he entered public life.</p> + +<p>Luck may explain a commercial career and you cannot elect luck to +office. Special talents which are valuable in making money may be out of +place in political life.</p> + +<p>Moreover commercial success in America has been easier than anywhere +else in the world. Opportunities are numerous with the result that +competition has not been keen. Nothing has been so over praised or so +blindly praised as business success in this country. We may occasionally +elect men in public life to office upon false reputations, as we did +Vice-President Coolidge, crediting him with a firmness toward the Boston +police strikers which had been shown by a subordinate in his absence. +But at least the acts of officials are subject to popular scrutiny. +Behind success in business we may not look.</p> + +<p>Take the case of a Middle Western corporation. Three quarters of its +profits came from a subsidiary. The history of the subsidiary is this: +The corporation came into possession of certain mineral lands through +the foreclosure of a mortgage. A company developing a product from the +mineral failed. The head of the corporation acquiring the property by +foreclosure thought this product of little value. A subordinate felt +that it could by a change of name and judicious advertising be widely +sold. He had great difficulty in persuading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> his employer but in the end +obtained the money to make his experiment, whose results fully justified +his judgment. The public seeking a business man for office would look no +further than at the success of the corporation, which would be proof +sufficient of the great talents of its head. Electing him they would not +obtain for public service the mind which made the money, even if it be +agreed that the talent for making money is a talent for public service.</p> + +<p>And this case: A great Eastern trust acquired possession of a piece of +property in this way: It uses a mineral product not much found in this +country. Some Westerners had a deposit. They went to the Eastern trust, +which encouraged them and loaned them $10,000 for its development. They +then found that the trust was the only market for the mineral and that +it had no intention to buy. Ultimately this deposit passed to the trust +by foreclosure of the $10,000 mortgage. The trust thus obtaining +ownership, began mining and in the first year cleared $500,000 on its +$10,000 investment. The transaction in this instance was not the work of +a subordinate; it revealed, however, a peculiar talent in the head of +the corporation that would not be serviceable in public life.</p> + +<p>To get down to names. Many business men entered the service of the +government during the war. Almost none of them left it with enhanced +reputations. Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, who served<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> in the Treasury +Department, had little success, so the men who surrounded him felt. I am +not able to assess the causes of his failure. Perhaps he had assigned to +him an impossible task.</p> + +<p>Similarly men who had contact with him while financing the Republican +campaign of 1916 were disappointed. After his service at Washington he +ceased to be head of a great Wall Street bank. What do these adverse +circumstances mean regarding Mr. Vanderlip's fitness to be, let us say, +Secretary of the Treasury? Precisely nothing, let us admit. And his +success for a number of years in banking, the large fortune he +accumulated, by the same reasoning, mean no more.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vanderlip is one of our best known business men, yet what the public +knows about him is nothing. He was the president of a great bank and +amassed wealth. An old financial journalist, he has gift of speech and +writing, unusual in the business world. His agreeable personality made +him liked by editors. He achieved unusual publicity. Was his reputation +solidly based or was it newspaper made? The public does not know, cannot +know. I use his case by way of illustration. Perhaps he ought to be +President of the United States. But choosing a man for office on the +basis of his business success, even so well known a man as Mr. +Vanderlip, is plainly enough blind gambling.</p> + +<p>We have in office now one of the great business<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> men of the country. Mr. +Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, who is posed somewhat +uneasily upon what is, many say, the highest pile of wealth any one has +ever heaped up, except Mr. John D. Rockefeller. I say "somewhat +uneasily" because I have in mind Mr. Mellon emerging from a +Congressional hearing at the Capitol, flustered and uncomfortable, +turning to a subordinate and asking anxiously, "Well, did I make a good +impression?" What could a subordinate reply except, "Yes, Mr. Mellon, +you did very well."?</p> + +<p>But Mr. Mellon does not make a good impression on the witness stand. If +he were unjustly accused of a crime he would hang himself by appearing +in his own defense, unless the jury sensed in his stammering hesitancy +not guilt but an honest inability to express himself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mellon is the shyest and most awkward man who ever rose to power. He +is unhappy before Congressional committees, before reporters in the +dreadful conferences which are the outward and visible evidence of our +democracy, at Cabinet meetings, where the fluent Mr. Hughes casts him +terribly in the shade.</p> + +<p>At one such meeting the President dragged him forth from silence by +turning to him and asking him, "What has the Sphinx here got to say on +the subject." Thus impelled, the Secretary of the Treasury replied, +unconsciously in the words of Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> Roger de Coverley, "Well, Mr. +President, I think there is a good deal to be said on both sides."</p> + +<p>If we may believe the psychologists, the great object of acquiring +wealth and power is the achievement of self-complacency. If it is, Mr. +Mellon has somehow missed it. You can not imagine him writing himself +down beside the others in the great American copy book and saying +seriously to the youth of the land, "Look at me, I worked always fifteen +minutes after the whistle blew and behold the result. Follow my +footsteps." No golden words issue from his mouth. Some unforgetable +personal measure of his own deserts, some standard peculiar to himself, +perhaps, refuses to be buried under the vast accumulations.</p> + +<p>Were ever great abilities so tongue-tied as this? I ask this question +not to answer it. I merely hold Mr. Mellon up as the usually insoluble +riddle, the why of great business success. But granting that the real +Mr. Mellon is shown in the enormous fortune and not in the timid asking +of a subordinate, "Did I make a good impression?" does such shrinking, +such ill adaptation, on the stage of public life make a contribution to +the unending drama of self-government?</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a> +<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I take it that behind these footlights which we call Washington, just as +behind the literal footlights, the actors, if there is to be any lifting +of us up, must play a part with which we can identify ourselves in our +imagination. He must be articulate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> He must get across. Mr. Harding +does it admirably. You watch him and you realize that he is the oldest +of stage heroes, Everyman. You say to yourself unconsciously, "Only the +accident of seven million majority separates him from me." You are +lifted up. Ordinary flesh and blood can do this great thing.</p> + +<p>Based on this desire to identify ourselves with greatness is our +familiar aphorism, "The office makes the man." All that is necessary is +the office to "make" the least of us.</p> + +<p>Roosevelt played the part even better than Mr. Harding, "an ordinary man +raised to the nth power." He strutted to fill the eye. He was the +consummation of articulateness. The point is that self-government must +be dramatic or it does not carry along the self-governors.</p> + +<p>Of course one must not overlook the fact that "the great silent man" is +a consolation to common inarticulateness and ineffectiveness, the +general belief that where there is a slow tongue profundity is found +being one of those pleasant things which we like to think about +ourselves—"we could and we would." But after all there is a sense of +pity about our kind attribution of hidden power to dullness. We are half +aware that we are compensating.</p> + +<p>Anyway, even if the great business man is at home upon the stage, which +Mr. Mellon is not, the calling of him to office interrupts the drama of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +self-government. We admit our failure and call in the gods from another +world. It is as I have said a staged receivership. We can not identify +ourselves with the hero. We are poor worms, not millionaires. We might +have the seven million majority but we could not also stand upon a pile +of seven million gold dollars. Government ceases to be human. It becomes +superhuman. And self-government must be human.</p> + +<p>Of course, I exaggerate. Mr. Mellon coming from that other world is not +wholly without his human relations. I have alluded to his symbolizing +the wish-fulfilment of the inarticulate, and the inarticulate are many. +He does more. He fits admirably into what Mr. Walter Lippmann has called +in his new book one of our popular stereotypes. We demand a conflict +between reality and the stage. We like to see the masks pulled off our +actors. One of our best received traditions is that a man who has a +fight with the politicians has performed a great service. We like to see +our strutters strut in a little fear of us.</p> + +<p>But Secretary Mellon's defeat of Representative Fordney, Senator Elkins, +and Elmer Dover in their efforts to fill his department with politicians +was not so much a sign of power as a measure of the difference between +Mr. Mellon's world and theirs.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mellon comes into the Treasury from his bank. All he knows is +banking, not politics. If he went from the Mellon Bank to the National<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +City Bank of New York he would not discharge all the National City Bank +employees and bring in a lot of men who had never seen the inside of a +bank before, whom he did not know, who didn't speak the same language +that he did. It is only in politics that one finds such perfect faith in +man as man.</p> + +<p>He goes to one young Democrat in the Department—this actually +happened—and he says, "Young man, I like your work. I want you to stay +with me," "Ah, but, Mr. Mellon, I can't," plead this Democrat, "You +really can't do things that way. It is not done. You will have all the +Republican politicians about your ears."</p> + +<p>But it was not a sense of power in Mr. Mellon that made him thus defy +the conventions. It was merely the instinct of self-protection. He could +not live in the atmosphere of politics. He had to do things as he always +had done them. The Gods coming down from high Olympus among the sons and +daughters of men were probably never as much at ease as the Greeks made +them out to be.</p> + +<p>With his millions behind him Mr. Mellon was a solid object in his +conflict with the politicians. Without them one does not know what would +have happened between him and Mr. Fordney, Mr. Elkins, and Mr. Dover.</p> + +<p>What is a good Secretary of the Treasury? We have a stereotype about +that, too, one slowly and painfully formed. A good Secretary of the +Treasury is one who has seen the inside of a bank, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> has read the +books on finance and knows the rules. Originally our Secretaries of the +Treasury were amateurs, like our generals who beat ploughshares into +swords. When one got into trouble, he boarded the Congressional Limited +for New York and saw Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan came out of his bank holding +the safety of the nation in his hands, exhibiting it to reporters who +wrote all about it, assuring the public.</p> + +<p>At length it was decided to keep the safety of the nation at Washington. +And our Secretaries of the Treasury tended to become professional. The +young men who tell us whether we have a good Secretary of the Treasury +or not are the financial writers of the newspapers. The Secretary acts. +The young men look in the books and see that he has conformed to the +rules. When he has he leaves nothing to be desired as Secretary.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mellon's relation to Alexander Hamilton is the same as Marshal +Foch's relation to Napoleon; one knew war from his own head, the other +knows it from the teachers. Mr. Mellon's administration is not inspired. +In the greatest financial crisis in our history he has no constructive +suggestion to make. You would hardly know that Secretary Houston was +gone and Mr. Mellon had come. And there is an explanation for this +continuity, beside that of the rule books. The hard work of the +Department has been done under both administrations by Assistant +Secretary S. P. Gilbert, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Mr. Mellon has the successful man's habit +of leaning heavily upon an able and industrious subordinate. Mr. Gilbert +is an ambitious young lawyer who has mastered the books and who works 18 +hours a day. The voice is the voice of Mellon but the hand is the hand +of Gilbert.</p> + +<p>I have analyzed Mr. Mellon at Washington although only a small fraction +of his career is involved and although he operates in the difficult +circumstances of an unknown and unfavorable environment. But he is +perceptible in Washington, he does appear before Congressional +Committees and at newspaper conferences. You can study the Gilberts who +surround him. You can estimate the prepossessions that enter into our +judgment of him. You can measure him against the standard of public +life.</p> + +<p>In Pittsburg he is more remote. He is hedged about with the secrecy of +business. He is to be seen only through the golden aura of a great +fortune, sitting shy and awkward upon an eminence, the product of forces +and personalities which can only be guessed at.</p> + +<p>He was the son of a banker and inherited a considerable fortune. He +operated in a city which expanded fabulously in the course of his +lifetime. If he is shy and unbusiness-worldly, he has a brother who has +that force of personality which we usually associate with fitness for +life. His bank was the chosen instrument of Henry C. Frick, one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +pioneer demigods, who could make the business reputations of men who +proved adaptable to his uses.</p> + +<p>Thus into the result there enters the power of Frick, the thrust upward +of Pittsburg, an industrial volcano, the associated personality of the +other Mellon. You have to give a name to all this combination of +favoring circumstances and favoring personalities and names are usually +given arbitrarily. The name given in this case is Andrew W. Mellon. But +how much of it is Andrew W. Mellon and how much of it is Pittsburg, how +much of it Frick, how much of it brother Mellon, an electorate seeking a +business man for office can not stop to inquire and can not learn if it +does inquire.</p> + +<p>If the people elect a man like Mr. Mellon to office they do not enlist +in the public service the combination of persons and forces which is +known by his name. Or if he is all that he seems to be, measured by his +great fortune, perhaps they get him after he has spent his force or +after his head is turned by success, or at any rate they put him into an +unfamiliar milieu and subject him to that corrupting temptation, the +desire for a second term or for a higher office.</p> + +<p>And to go back to what I have said before, they make self-government go +into bankruptcy and ask for a receiver.</p> + +<p>The great business-man President is just a romantic development of the +great business-man illusion.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE BOTTLE</h3> + + +<p>Mr. Mellon's associates in the Cabinet were most of them chosen on +substantially the same principles as he was, namely, that success in +business or professional life implies fitness for public life. We have +no other standard. The present Cabinet is an "exceptionally good" +Cabinet. Many of its members are millionaires.</p> + +<p>Some of them owe their place to the rule that those who help elect a +President are entitled to the honor, the advertising, or the +"vindication," of high public office.</p> + +<p>That is to say, the same considerations that rule in the selection of +Senators rule in their selection. They were recruited from the class +from which Senators are recruited. I can not say the mental level of the +Cabinet is above that of the Senate. Take out of the upper house its two +strongest members, its two weakest, and half a dozen of the average +sort, and you construct a body in every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> way equal to the Cabinet of Mr. +Harding in intelligence and public morals.</p> + +<p>Most of them, never having been members of the upper house, have not +suffered from the depreciation in the public eye which attends service +in the legislative branch. They come rather from the wonderful business +world.</p> + +<p>There are, moreover, few of them compared to Senators. Smallness of +numbers suggests careful selection, superior qualifications.</p> + +<p>And the secrecy of Cabinet meetings makes them impressive. If reporters +were present, the public would realize that the Cabinet as a Cabinet was +mostly occupied with little things.</p> + +<p>The records prove it.</p> + +<p>The biweekly meetings of the Cabinet are commonly followed by the +announcement: "The Cabinet had a short session today. Nothing of +importance was discussed"; or, "Details of administration were +discussed." Now, of course, reasons of state may occasionally restrain +the disclosure of what actually was the subject before the Cabinet. Yet +Mr. Harding's administration has been in office more than a year, and +how many important policies has it adopted? How much wisdom has emerged +from the biweekly meetings?</p> + +<p>Sample announcements of the Cabinet meetings run like this: "The Cabinet +listened to the Postmaster General, explaining how much it would +facilitate the handling of the mails if people would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> distribute the +mailing of their letters throughout the day, instead of keeping most of +them to mail late in the afternoon when they are leaving their offices. +The Postmaster General pointed out that the government departments were +offenders in this respect." Useful; but why should the whole nation worry +about who advises with the President over the inveterate bad habits of +the people as letter writers?</p> + +<p>Or this: "The Cabinet spent an hour and a half today discussing what to +do with the property left in the government's hands by the war. There +are millions of dollars' worth of such property." A mere detail of +administration, but it came before the Cabinet as a whole because more +than one department was left in control of the property.</p> + +<p>Moreover, you may estimate the importance of cabinets from the fact +that, after all, every administration takes its color from the +President. Mr. Wilson's administration was precisely Mr. Wilson. Mr. +Harding's is precisely Mr. Harding.</p> + +<p>Listen to the experience of a Cabinet adviser. One of the most important +Secretaries was explaining to some friends a critical situation. "But," +interjected one of the listeners, "does President Harding understand +that?" "The President," replied the Secretary, "never has time really to +understand anything."</p> + +<p>And remember how Secretary Hughes told the President that the Four Power +Pact covered with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> its guarantees the home islands of Japan, and how a +couple of days later Mr. Harding informed the press that it did not +cover the home islands of Japan; when it transpired that the information +of Mr. Hughes on this point had effected no lodgement in the President's +mind.</p> + +<p>The Presidential mind; that is the bottle neck through which everything +has to pass.</p> + +<p>Suppose we had today the greatest statesman that this country has ever +produced as Secretary of State. Let us say Alexander Hamilton, for +example. What could Alexander Hamilton do as the head of Mr. Harding's +Cabinet? We shall assume that Alexander Hamilton had the mind to grasp +the problem of this country's relations to the world and of its interest +in the world's recovery from the havoc and the hatreds of the war, and +the constructive imagination to reach a solution of it. What could +Alexander Hamilton do? His avenue of approach to world problems would be +Mr. Harding. All that was in the mind of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary +of State, would have to pass through the mind of Warren G. Harding, +President, before it would become effective.</p> + +<p>The passage through would be blocked by many obstacles, for Mr. Harding +has a perfectly conventional mind; that is why he is President. One of +the pictures in Mr. Harding's head is the mechanistic, the God's Time +picture. "Things left to themselves will somehow come out all right."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +Another is the racial inferiority complex. "Man is inadequate to attempt +control of his own destiny. There are the forces to be considered." A +third is the great business-man illusion. Mr. Morgan going abroad to +consider reparations may accomplish the wonders which mere statesmen can +not. All these induce avoidance of responsibility, and Mr. Harding has +the human liking for avoiding responsibility. Pressed by Mr. Hamilton, +Mr. Harding would say: "But I can not move the Senate." Pressed further, +he would say: "There is Public Opinion. We shall lose the election if we +become involved in European affairs. You and I know those Allied war +debts are worthless, but how can we make the people realize that they +are worthless?"</p> + +<p>Like the rest of us, Mr. Harding perhaps has none of these pictures so +firmly in his head as before the war; but the damage to the pictures +only makes him more vacillating. I am assuming in all this that Mr. +Hamilton has a free mind, which he had, relatively, when he operated a +century and a half ago. At that time he had not to think much of Public +Opinion or of parties. And the mechanistic theory of Progress, that +things come out all right with the least possible human intervention or +only the intervention of the business man, had not then assumed its +present importance.</p> + +<p>"Mind," says a nameless writer in the <i>London Nation</i>, "is incorrigibly +creative." It has created<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> so many vast illusions like those above in +the last century and a half that like the American spirit in Kipling's +poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Elbowed out by sloven friends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It camps, at sufferance, on the stoop."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Where our actual Secretary's mind falls short of our supposititious +Secretary's mind is in the valuable quality of common sense. I am even +prepared to maintain that as a measure of reality Mr. Hughes's mind is +distinctly inferior to Mr. Harding's, which is one reason why he never +did become President and Mr. Harding did. I can not better explain what +I mean than on the basis of this quotation from a recent book of Mr. +Orage, the British critic:</p> + +<p>"Common sense is the community of the senses or faculties; in its +outcome it is the agreement of their reports. A thing is said to be +common sense when it satisfies the heart, the mind, the emotion and all +the senses; when, in fact, it satisfies all our various criteria of +reality."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes has only one criterion of reality, his mind, which has been +developed at the expense of all his other means of approach to the +truth. He lives in a region of facts, principles, and logical +deductions. He does not sense anything. And only men who sense reality +have common sense. For Mr. Hughes facts are solid; you can make two +nice, orderly little piles of them and build a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> logical bridge over the +interval between them. A true statesman builds a bridge resting on +nothing palpable, and nevertheless he crosses over it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes's mind operates in a region of perfect demonstration; he even +demonstrates things to himself. A true statesman never succeeds in +demonstrating anything to himself; he uses demonstration only in dealing +with others. Yet he arrives in other than logical ways at a sureness for +himself which is never Mr. Hughes's. For the Secretary of State +statesmanship is an intellectual exercise, for the true statesman it is +the exercise of a dozen other faculties. An extraordinary but limited +mind, Mr. Hughes impresses us as the boy lightning calculator does, and +leaves us unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>Take Mr. Hughes's handling of Mexican relations as an example of what I +have called statesmanship made a purely intellectual exercise. The +practical result which was to be desired when Mr. Hughes took office was +stability and order in Mexico, the safety of American property there, +and a restoration of diplomatic intercourse.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes does not seek to obtain these results. Instead he works out +the following problem: <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = <i>c</i>, in which <i>a</i> is the fact that +Carranza had issued a decree making possible the confiscation of +American property in Mexico, <i>b</i> is the principle of international law +that at the basis of relations between peoples must be safety of alien +property, and <i>c</i> is a note to Mexico.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes was excited over the perfection of this intellectual +operation. He read his note with all the jubilance of the Greek +philosopher who, having discovered an important principle of physics, +exclaimed: "Eureka." Mr. Hughes's Eureka is always a piece of paper. He +is a lawyer whose triumphs are briefs and contracts.</p> + +<p>Now the facts were not merely that Carranza had made an offensive +gesture, issuing the famous decree; but that Mexico had not confiscated +American property and lived in such fear of her strong neighbor that she +was never likely to do so, that the Mexican supreme court had ruled +confiscation to be illegal, that the Obregon government was as stable +and as good a government as Mexico was likely to have, and that it was +to our interest to support it morally rather than encourage further +revolution there. They all pointed to recognition.</p> + +<p>The validity of the piece of paper that Mr. Hughes demanded of Obregon +would rest upon international law. But so did the validity of our right +to have our property in Mexico respected. We should not be in any +stronger legal position to intervene in Mexico if she violated the +contract Mr. Hughes wanted, than if she violated our property rights +there unfortified by such a piece of paper. Both rested on one and the +same law.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, Mexico being weak and sensitive, an arbitrary demand that +she "take the pledge," such as Mr. Hughes made, was sure to offend her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +pride, and delay the consummation everyone wished—stability across the +border and a restoration of good relations. Yet Mr. Hughes was immensely +satisfied with his intellectual exercise <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = <i>c</i>, <i>c</i> being not +a solution of the Mexican problem, which at this writing is still afar +off, but a piece of paper, a note to Mexico. The sheer logical triumph +of the deduction of <i>c</i> from <i>a</i> and <i>b</i> is to Mr. Hughes an end in +itself.</p> + +<p>Now, of course, it is not wholly overdevelopment of mind at the expense +of the other criteria of reality which leads Mr. Hughes to vain +exercises like <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = <i>c</i>. He has what a recent writer has +described as "an inflamed legal sense." He has, moreover, by an +association of ideas all his own oddly transferred to law that +sacredness with which he was brought up to regard the Bible. "Sanctity +of contracts," is his favorite phrase, the word "sanctity" being highly +significant. He has, besides, Mr. Harding over him, and the Senate to +reckon with. And in the case of Mexico he has as a fellow Cabinet +member, Mr. Fall, the picture in whose head is of a "white man" teaching +a "greaser" to respect him. He has to think of winning elections, of his +own political ambitions. All these inhibitory influences which generally +produce negation do not estop Mr. Hughes. His mind is too vigorous for +that. It pursues its way energetically to results, such as <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = +<i>c</i>.</p> + +<p>Now, of course, the handling of Mexican relations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> is not Mr. Hughes's +major achievement. But even his major achievement, the Washington +conference with its resultant nine pieces of paper, was more or less a +lawyer's plea in avoidance.</p> + +<p>The major problem which confronted Mr. Hughes was this: The Great War +had been followed, as Mr. H. G. Wells aptly says, by the Petty Peace. It +was threatening, and still threatens, to flame up again. The problem of +a real peace confronted Mr. Hughes, because Mr. Wilson had sought to +establish one and failed, and had thus set a certain standard of effort +for his successor. Moreover, Mr. Hughes had said that every man, woman, +and child in the United States was vitally interested in the economic +recovery of Europe.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes had either to face this task or divert the mind of the court +to some other issue. He chose to find his <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = <i>c</i> elsewhere. The +problem of establishing peace where there was war was difficult; perhaps +it was too hard for any man, but has not humanity—I say humanity +because it is Mr. Harding's favorite word—has not humanity the right to +ask of its statesmen something more than timidity and avoidance? The +problem of establishing peace where there was peace, in the Orient, was +relatively easy.</p> + +<p>The war had left the great sea powers with excessive navies and +insupportable naval budgets. All wanted naval limitation. It was only +necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> to propose an agreement for reduction to have it accepted.</p> + +<p>Even the dramatic method of making the proposal, with details of the +tonnage to be scrapped, was not Mr. Hughes's idea. Let us do the man in +the White House justice. He conceived it on the <i>Mayflower</i>; read it to +Senator James Watson who was with him, and wirelessed it to the State +Department.</p> + +<p>There was the further problem, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Mr. Hughes +wanted it ended. Japan and England wanted it substituted by a compact +which should be signed by its two signatories and the United States.</p> + +<p>All that Mr. Hughes had to do to establish peace where there was peace +was to offer an agreement upon naval armament and accept the +Anglo-Japanese plan for a wider pact in the Pacific. The details would +involve discussion, but the success of the general program was assured +in advance.</p> + +<p>The conference was called, hurriedly, because, as Mr. Harding once +explained, if he had not hastened someone else would have anticipated +him in calling it. This shows how obvious was the expedient. The idea of +naval limitation was no more original than the idea of the conference. +Mr. Borah had proposed it. Lord Lee had proposed it, in the British +Parliament. The idea of the Four Power Pact was made in England—it had +long been discussed there—and brought over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> by Mr., now Lord, Balfour. +He laid it at Mr. Hughes's feet.</p> + +<p>Mr. Balfour sought no triumphs. They should all go to Mr. Hughes. He has +the art of inconspicuousness, the result of many generations of fine +breeding. As you saw him in the plenary sessions clutching the lapels of +his coat with both hands and modestly struggling for utterance after an +immense flow of words from our chief delegate, you could not help +feeling patriotic pride in the contrast.</p> + +<p>Besides, Mr. Balfour was captivated. He became, for the nonce, perfectly +American. Mr. H. Wickham Steed said to me, hearing the chief British +delegate speak: "It is a new Balfour at this conference." Certainly as +you heard the voice, moved and moving, emotional perhaps for the first +time in his life, you realized that it was not Mr. Balfour, "proceeding +on his faded way" as the <i>London Nation</i> expressed it, who was speaking. +It was Mr. Balfour as he might be at a great revival meeting, such as +Mr. Hughes in his youth must have often attended.</p> + +<p>On the Four Power Pact the best comment ever made was Mr. Frank +Simonds's, "It was invented to save the British Empire from committing +bigamy."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus6" id="illus6"></a> +<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>ARTHUR BALFOUR</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The results of the Washington conference were substantial. They put off +war where none was threatening. Perhaps in the longer future they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +will be seen to be no more than a prolongation of the intent of the +Versailles treaty, confirming the dichotomy of powers which that +instrument created. Germany, Russia, and China were treated as outsiders +in both conferences.</p> + +<p>But the great <i>a</i> + <i>b</i> = <i>c</i> of last winter left peace where there is +war still unwritten. The problem which "humanity" posed to Mr. Hughes is +as yet unattempted. It is as exigent as ever. Immensely plausible as he +is, events have a way of overtaking him. Remembering what happened on +election night in 1916, I think one cannot sum him up better than by +saying that he has the habit of always being elected in the early +returns. As in the case of the lightning calculator, after you have +recovered from your first surprise at his mental exhibition you are +inclined to ask, "But what is the good of it all?"</p> + +<p>The two most important advisers to the President in the existing Cabinet +are Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hoover. The limitations of the Secretary of State +are the limitations of a legalistic mind. The limitations of Mr. Hoover +are the limitations of a scientific mind. Men, considered politically, +do not behave like mathematical factors nor like chemical elements.</p> + +<p>Someone asked Mr. Hoover recently why he sent corn to Russia instead of +wheat. "Because," replied the Secretary of Commerce without a moment's +hesitation, "for one dollar I can buy so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> many calories"—carrying it +out to the third decimal place—"in corn, and only so many"—again to +the third decimal place—"in wheat. I get about twice as many in corn as +in wheat."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hoover is at his best in feeding a famished population. He then has +men where he wants them—I say this without meaning to reflect upon Mr. +Hoover's humanitarian impulses; perhaps I should better say he then has +men where for the free operation of his scientific mind he requires to +have them. For in a famine men become mere chemical retorts. You pour +into them a certain number of calories. Oxidization produces a certain +energy. And the exact energy necessary to sustain life is calculable.</p> + +<p>In a famine men cease to be individuals. They can not say, "I never ate +corn. I do not know how to cook corn. I do not like corn." They behave +in perfectly calculable ways. So many calories, oxidization; so much +energy.</p> + +<p>Conceive a society in which results were always calculable: so many men, +so much fuel, so much consequent horsepower, and Mr. Hoover would make +for it an admirable benevolent dictator; for he is benevolent. If +Bolshevism at its most complete exemplification had been a success and +become the order of the world, Mr. Hoover might have made a great head +of a state; with labor conscripted and food conscripted, all you would +have to do would be to apply the food, counted in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> calories, to the +labor, and production in a readily estimable quantity would ensue. I am +not trying to suggest that this represents Mr. Hoover's ideal of +society; it surely does not. I am only saying that this is the kind of +society in which Mr. Hoover would develop his fullest utility.</p> + +<p>Science inevitably reduces man to the calculable automaton, otherwise it +can deduce no laws about him;—such as, for example, the legal man, a +fiction that haunts Mr. Hughes's brain; the chemical retort man, of Mr. +Hoover's mind; the economic man, another convenient fiction; the +scientific socialism man, another pure fiction, derived from the +economic man and forming the basis for Bolshevism at its fullest +development.</p> + +<p>Now if Chemistry should somehow acquire eccentricity, so that two +elements combined in a retort would sometimes produce one result and +sometimes another totally different, the chemist would be no more unsure +in his mind than is Mr. Hoover, operating for the first time in a +society of free, self-governing men. Or perhaps it would be a better +analogy to say that if the chemist when he put an agent into a retort +could not be sure what other elements were already in it, and could not +tell whether the result would be an explosion or a pleasant and useful +recombination, he would be somewhat in the position of Mr. Hoover.</p> + +<p>You will observe that I am trying to dissociate the real Hoover from the +myth Hoover, always a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> difficult process, which may require years for +its accomplishment. I do not pretend that this is the final +dissociation. All we know with certainty of the real Hoover is that when +he has society at the starvation line and can say "so many calories, so +much energy," he works with extraordinary sureness.</p> + +<p>When he operates in a normal society he takes his chemical agent in hand +and consults Mr. Harding, Mr. Daugherty, or Mr. Weeks as to what agents +there are in the political retort, and whether the placing of his agent +in with them will produce an explosion or a profitable recombination.</p> + +<p>So you see the practical utility of his mind is conditioned upon the +minds of Mr. Harding, Mr. Weeks, and Mr. Daugherty. It is a fertile +mind, which invents, however, only minor chemical reactions, neither he +nor Mr. Harding being sure enough about the dirty and incalculable +vessel of politics to know when an explosion may result, and neither of +them being bold enough to take chances.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hoover, and Mr. Daugherty are the only outstanding +figures in the Cabinet. The Attorney General lives in an unreal world of +his own, which at the moment of this writing threatens to come tumbling +down about his head.</p> + +<p>The clue to Mr. Daugherty's world is found in a sentence of Thomas +Felder's letter apropos of the failure to collect the $25,000 fee for +securing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> release of Charles W. Morse from prison, in which he tells +how he associated with himself Mr. Daugherty, "who stood as close to the +President as any other lawyer or citizen of the United States." +"Standing close," men may laugh at the gods, may "take the cash and let +the credit go." It is a world of little things without any tomorrow. +Long views and large views do not matter. Forces? Principles? Perhaps, +but the main thing is all men should "stand close." It is an immensely +human world, where men if they are not masters of their own destiny may +at least cheat fate for a little brief hour, if only they remain true to +each other no matter what befalls.</p> + +<p>Mr. Harding, one side of him belongs to that world of Mr. Daugherty's, +while another side belongs to that larger political world where morals, +wrapped in vague sentimental words, hold sway. It is because he belongs +to that world that Mr. Daugherty is Attorney General. Mr. Daugherty +"stood close" to Mr. Harding all his life. "Standing close" creates an +obligation. Mr. Harding, as President, must in return "stand close" to +Mr. Daugherty.</p> + +<p>He does so. To the caller who visited him when the Morse-Felder letters +were coming out daily, and who was apprehensive of the consequences, the +President said, "You don't know Harry Daugherty. He is as clean and +honorable a man as there is in this country." In such a world as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> this, +your friend can do no wrong. Goldstein, who received the $2,500 from +Lowden's campaign manager, belongs to it. Therefore, he can do no wrong. +Therefore, his name goes from the White House to the Senate for +confirmation as Collector of Internal Revenue at St. Louis.</p> + +<p>To go back to the time before he became Attorney General, Daugherty +practiced law in Columbus, Ohio. His cases came to him, largely as the +Morse retainer did, because he "stood close" to somebody, to the +President, to Senators, to Governors of Ohio, or Legislatures of Ohio. +His was not a highly lucrative practice, for Mr. Daugherty is one of the +few relatively poor men in the present Cabinet. You may deduce from this +circumstance a conclusion as favorable as that which the President, who +knows him so well, does. I am concerned only in presenting the facts. At +least Mr. Daugherty did not grow rich out of "standing close."</p> + +<p>Nor did he accumulate a reputation. When men "stand close" those who are +outside the circle invariably regard them with a certain suspicion. Your +professional politician, for that is what Daugherty was, always is an +object of doubt. And for this reason he always seeks what is technically +known as a "vindication." Conscious of his own rectitude, as he measures +it, he may come out of office cleared in the world's eyes, and with a +fine title, to boot, ready for life upon a new level.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> And this +"vindication" sometimes does take place.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt that Mr. Daugherty entered office with the most +excellent intentions. He had everything to gain personally from "making +a record" in the Attorney Generalship, a title and a higher standing at +the bar. Moreover, he was the loyal friend of the President and desired +the success of the administration.</p> + +<p>But it is not so easy. You cannot one moment by "standing close" laugh +at the gods and the next range yourself easily and commodiously on the +side of the gods. The gods may be unkind even to those who mean to be +with them from the outset, establishing their feet firmly upon logic or +upon calories; how much more so may they be with those who would +suddenly change sides?</p> + +<p>At least it is a matter that admits of no compromise. What is he going +to do in office with those who "stood close" to him as he "stood close" +to President Taft? All the "close standers" turn up in Washington. For +example, Mr. Felder, who "stood close" in the Morse case and who perhaps +for that reason appears as counsel in the Bosch-Magneto case, where the +prosecution moves slowly, and who moreover permits himself some +indiscretions. There is a whole army of "close standers." There are the +prosecutions that move slowly. Neither circumstance is necessarily +significant. There are always the "close standers."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> Prosecutions always +move slowly. But the two circumstances together!</p> + +<p>I present all this merely to show what kind of adviser the Attorney +General is, his limited conception of life on this little world, and +life's, perhaps temporary, revenge upon him. No one at this writing can +pass judgment, so I give, along with the facts and the appearances, the +best testimonial that a man can have, that quoted above from the +President.</p> + +<p>In physique the Attorney General is burly, thick-necked, his eyes are +unsteady, his face alternately jovial and minatory,—I should say he +bluffed effectively,—rough in personality, a physical law requiring +that bodies easily cemented together, and thus "standing close," should +not have too smooth an exterior. His view of the world being highly +personal, his instinctive idea of office is that it, too, is personal, +something to be used, always within the law, to aid friends and punish +enemies. He wrote once to a newspaper, which was opposing his +appointment, in substance that he would be Attorney General in spite of +it and that he had a long memory.</p> + +<p>Secretary of War Weeks is the only other general adviser of Mr. Harding +in the Cabinet. He is politically minded. Like Mr. Harding he is half of +the persuasion of Mr. Daugherty about organization, and half of the +other persuasion about the sway of moral forces. All in all he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +nearer akin mentally to the President than any other member of the +Cabinet, but with more industry and more capacity for details than his +chief. He is of the clean desk tradition; Mr. Harding is not.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus7" id="illus7"></a> +<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>ATTORNEY-GENERAL H. M. DAUGHERTY</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Half politician and half business man, he interprets business to the +politician, and politics to business. He is a middle grounder. He quit +banking satisfied with a moderate fortune, saying, "The easiest thing I +ever did was to make money."</p> + +<p>His bland voice and mild manner indicate the same moderation in +everything that he showed in making money; his narrowing eyes, the +caution which led him to quit banking when he went into politics.</p> + +<p>Politics intrigues him, but he has not a first-class mind for it, as his +experiences in Massachusetts proved.</p> + +<p>Frank to the utmost limits his caution will permit, people like him, but +not passionately. Men respect his ability, but they do not feel strongly +about it. He never becomes the center of controversy, as Daugherty is, +as Hoover has been, and as Hughes may at any time be. I have never seen +him angry, I have seen him enthusiastic. A Laodicean in short.</p> + +<p>Secretary Fall hoped to be one of the chief advisers, but has been +disappointed. Mr. Harding had said of him, "His is the best mind in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +Senate," but he has found other minds more to his liking in the Cabinet.</p> + +<p>With a long drooping mustache, he looks like a stage sheriff of the Far +West in the movies. His voice is always loud and angry. He has the +frontiers-man's impatience. From his kind lynch law springs.</p> + +<p>He wanted to lynch Mexico. When he entered the Cabinet he said to his +Senate friends, "If they don't follow me on Mexico I shall resign." He +has been a negative rather than a positive force there regarding Mexico, +deviating Mr. Hughes into the ineffective position he occupies.</p> + +<p>He has the frontiers-man's impatience of conservation. Probably he is +right. His biggest contribution to his country's welfare will be oil +land leases, like that of Teapot Dome.</p> + +<p>The Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Wallace, is an excellent technical +adviser, as unobtrusive as experts usually are.</p> + +<p>The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Denby, with his flabby jowls and large +shapeless mouth, has a big heart, and more enthusiasm than he has +self-command, judgment, or intelligence. He committed political suicide +cheerfully, when the Cannon machine in the House fell into disfavor. He +would do anything for a friend, not as Mr. Daugherty would because it +pays, but because he is a friend. A cause commands an equal loyalty from +him. Just because his head is not as big as his heart he is a minor +factor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Davis, Secretary of Labor, is a professional glad hand man, +appointed because the administration meant to extend nothing to Labor +but a glad hand. When a crisis presents itself in industrial relations, +Mr. Hoover, who spreads himself over several departments, attends to it. +At the conference on unemployment, which was Mr. Hoover's, the best and +only example of the unemployed present was the Secretary of Labor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR OF MUCH LITTLENESS</h3> + + +<p>We have a form of government suited to effect the will of a simple +primitive people, a people with one clear aim. When we are all of one +mind the government works. The executive represents the general +intention, Congress represents the same intention. The party in power +owes its position to the thoroughness with which it expresses the common +purpose. Or, if you go back further, the structure of business serves +the same social aim.</p> + +<p>Now, under such circumstances, it makes little difference where +authority resides, whether there is government by business, or +government by parties, or executive domination, or whether Congress is +the ruling branch. The result is the same, the single purpose of the +community finds its just expression.</p> + +<p>And so it was in the blessed nineties to which Mr. Harding would have us +return. The people were united upon one end, the rapid appropriation of +the virgin wealth of this continent and its distribution among the +public, and they had no doubt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> this was being admirably accomplished by +the existing business structure. Parties and governments were +subsidiary. The system worked.</p> + +<p>In a pioneer society waste is unimportant; it may even be economy. +Forests are cut and all but the choicest wood thrown away. They are not +replanted. While they are so plentiful it would be a waste of time and +effort to use the poor timber or to replace the felled trees.</p> + +<p>In a similar society faulty distribution, which is ordinarily a social +waste, is unimportant. There is plenty for all. And it may even be a +waste of time and effort, checking accomplishment, to seek better +adjustments. The object of society is the rapid exploitation of the +resources nature has made available. Everyone gains in the process. +Justice is a detail, as much a detail as is the inferior timber left to +rot.</p> + +<p>We no longer have the unity of aim of a pioneer society, yet we have not +readjusted our actual government in conformity with the altered social +consciousness. Instead we are trying to readjust ourselves to a practice +that is outworn. Having ceased to be pioneers, becoming various and +healthily divided, instead of making our system express the new variety +in our life, and still function, we are trying to force ourselves by +heavy penalties and awful bugaboos back into that unity under which our +system does work.</p> + +<p>And when I say that we have a form of government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> suited only to a +pioneer society, though we have ceased to be a pioneer society, let no +one think that I would lay a profane hand upon that venerated +instrument, the Constitution of the United States. I am thinking only of +the Constitution's boasted elasticity. A new stretching is required, to +fit a larger and more diversified society than that to which we have +hitherto applied it.</p> + +<p>For a simple, primitive people, for a pioneer society with but one task +to accomplish,—the appropriation and distribution of the undeveloped +resources of a continent,—details of distribution being unimportant +where natural wealth was so vast, government by business or government +by parties as the agents of business served admirably. The essential +unity which is not to be found in our government of divided powers +existed in the single engrossing aim of the public.</p> + +<p>For a temporary end, like the common defense, against an external enemy +or against an imagined internal enemy, concentration upon the Executive +also serves. The unity of purpose which the nation has is imported into +the government through elevating the President into a dominant position. +In the one case the government is made to work by putting all branches +of it under control of one authority outside itself; in the other, by +upsetting the nice balance which the Fathers of the Constitution set up +and, under the fiction of party authority, resorting to one man +Government.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>But what happens when there ceases to be a single aim, when the fruits +of the earth are no longer sufficient to go around generously so that no +one need question his share, when a conflict of interests arises, when +classes begin to emerge, when in short we have the situation which +exists in America today?</p> + +<p>Let us examine for a moment the Executive as a source of unity in the +government of such a divergent society. To make him executive minorities +must agree upon him. He must, to use Mr. Harding as an illustration, be +satisfactory to the farmers with one point of view and to Wall Street +with another, he must be acceptable to the Irish Americans and to the +German Americans and to several other varieties of Americans, he must +take the fence between those who believe in a League of Nations and +those who hate a League of Nations, he must please capital and at the +same time not alienate labor.</p> + +<p>Mr. Harding gave a glimpse of his difficulties when he said during the +campaign, "I could make better speeches than these, but I have to be so +careful." The greatest common divisor of all the minorities that go to +making a winning national combination must be neutral, he must be +colorless, he must not know that his soul is his own. The greatest +common divisor of all the elements in the nation's political +consciousness today is inevitably a Mr. Harding. We shall probably have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +a whole series of Mr. Hardings in the White House.</p> + +<p>And when this greatest common divisor of all the classes and all the +interests, this neutral, colorless person to whom no one can find any +objection, enters the White House does he represent Labor? So little +that he will not have a labor man in his Cabinet. Does he represent +Capital? By instinct, by party training, by preference, yes, but capital +is so divided that it is hard to represent, and the President, like the +candidate, "has to be so careful." Does he represent the farmers? He +says so, but the farmers choose to be represented elsewhere, on the +hill, where they can find agents whose allegiance is not so divided.</p> + +<p>And carefulness does not end upon election. Once a candidate always a +candidate. The entire first term of a president is his second candidacy. +His second term, if he wins one, is the candidacy of his successor, in +whose election he is vitally interested; for the continuance of his +party in power is the measure of public approval of himself. A president +who is the greatest common divisor of groups and interests "must always +be so careful" that he can never be a Roosevelt or a Wilson.</p> + +<p>Recapitulating the experiences of other peoples with political +institutions, we have quickly, since our discovery of one man rule, run +upon the period of little kings. The Carolingians have followed close +upon the heels of the great Carl. The institution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> which in the first +decade of the twentieth century was a wonderful example of our capacity +to adopt the rigors of a written constitution to our ends, of the +practical genius of the American people, in the third decade of the +twentieth century is already dead.</p> + +<p>The monarch with power, not the mere survival who satisfies the instinct +for the picturesque, for the play of the emotions in politics, is suited +to an undifferentiated people pursuing a single simple end; one end, one +man, many ends, many men is the rule. The greatest common divisor of +such masses of men as inhabit this continent, so variously sprung, so +variously seeking their place in the sun, is something that has to be so +careful as to become a nullity.</p> + +<p>There is no reason why our presidents should not become like all single +heads of modern civilized peoples, largely ornamental, largely links +with the past, symbols to stir our inherited feelings as we watch their +gracious progress through the movies. Mr. Harding is headed that way and +if that Providence which watches over American destinies vouchsafes him +to us for eight years instead of only four, the Presidency under him +will make progress toward a place alongside monarchy under King George.</p> + +<p>Already, in the habit of blaming every failure and disappointment upon +Congress, we see signs of the growth of the happy belief that the King +can do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> no wrong. When the King does nothing he can do no wrong.</p> + +<p>There is no reason why we should not repeat the experiences of peoples +who have gone further upon the road of social differentiation than we +have and develop like them parliamentary government. By this I do not +mean to echo the nonsense that has been written about having the Cabinet +officers sit in Congress.</p> + +<p>What is more likely to come is a new shift in the balance, a new +manifestation of our genius for the practical, which no written +constitution can restrain, which will place the initiative in the +legislative branch, whereas I have said, under Mr. Harding it is already +passing, and which will make Congress rather than the President the +dominant factor in our political life.</p> + +<p>This process is already taking place.</p> + +<p>When President Harding asked the advice of the Senate whether he should +revive an old treaty with Germany suspended by the war, pointing proudly +to the tenderness he was showing the partner of his political joys, he +conceded an authority in the legislative branch which neither the +Constitution nor our traditions had placed there. He took a step toward +recognizing the prospective dominance of Congress. It was one of many.</p> + +<p>It is a long distance, as political institutions are measured, from +President Wilson's telling the Senate that it must bow to his will even +in dotting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> the i's and crossing the t's of the Versailles Treaty, to +Mr. Harding's asking the Senate what was its will regarding the old +German treaty. Foreign relations are precisely the field where the +executive power seems by the Constitution to have been most clearly +established, yet it is just here that the legislative branch has made +its most remarkable advance toward a dominating position; perhaps +because this topic gained a temporary importance from the war and it was +naturally in the most significant area that the conflict between the two +branches of the government had to break out.</p> + +<p>When President Harding introduced the treaties and pacts resulting from +the Washington Conference into the Senate, he said that he had been a +Senator and knew the Senate views, and that all the agreements he was +offering for ratification had been negotiated with scrupulous regard to +the Senate's will. And he pleaded with the Senate not to disavow the +Executive and impair its standing in the conduct of foreign relations.</p> + +<p>No more complete avowal could be made of the dominant position which the +Senate has come to occupy in the diplomatic affairs of the country.</p> + +<p>In the field where he was supposed legally to have the initiative the +President became expressly the agent of the Senate. The Senate laid out +the limits of policy and the Executive scrupulously, so he said, +observed those limits.</p> + +<p>This speech of Mr. Harding's, like his consulting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> the Senate in advance +upon the reviving of the German treaty, is one of the significant +evidences of the shift of power that is taking place, away from the +Executive toward the Legislative. It did not attract the attention it +deserved because our minds are still full of the past when the +Presidency was a great office under Wilson and Roosevelt. We read of Mr. +Harding's going to the hill to tell Congress what it must do, and we +ignore the fact that he always does so when Congress sends for him, +acting as their agent.</p> + +<p>The King still makes his speech to Parliament, though the speech is +written by the ministers. They are his ministers, though Parliament +selects them. The power of the King is a convenient fiction. The power +of the President will always remain a convenient fiction, even if it +should come to have no more substance than that of the King.</p> + +<p>In truth it has been the Senate not the Executive that has been +determining our foreign policy in its broader outlines for more than two +years. The Secretary of State works out the details. But the Senate says +"thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And when the Secretary of State +has gone farther, as in the case of the peace treaty with Germany, the +Senate has amended his work. So Senator Penrose did not exaggerate, when +he said apropos of Mr. Hughes's appointment, "It makes no difference who +is Secretary of State, the Senate will make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the foreign policy." The +President has only recently declared that it has done so.</p> + +<p>So gradual has been the extension of the Senate's prerogative that few +realize how far it has gone. So low had the Senate sunk in public +estimation during the war that it did not occur to President Wilson that +he might not safely ignore it in making peace. He appointed no Senators +to the delegation which went to Paris. He did not consult the Senate +during the negotiations nor did he ever take pains to keep the Senate +informed. He proceeded on the theory that he might sign treaties with +perfect confidence that the Senate would accept them unquestioningly. +And so impressed was the country at the time with the power of the +Presidency that Mr. Wilson's tacit assumption of dictatorial power over +Congress was generally taken as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>All this was changed under Mr. Wilson's successor. One half of Mr. +Harding's delegation to the Washington Conference was made up of +Senators. At every step of the negotiation the Senate's susceptibilities +were borne in mind. No commitment was entered into which would exceed +the limits set by the Senate to the involvement of this country abroad. +Almost daily Mr. President consulted with Senators and explained to them +what the American Commission was doing. Practically the Executive became +the agent of the Senate in foreign relations and in the end he told the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +Senate what a good and faithful servant he had been and how scrupulously +he had respected its will.</p> + +<p>It was only superficially that Secretary Hughes was the outstanding +figure of the Conference. The really outstanding figure was the Senate. +Mr. Hughes was not free. Mr. Harding was not free. The controlling +factor was the Senate. The treaties had to be acceptable to the Senate, +whose views were known in advance. No theory of party authority, of +executive domination, would save them if they contravened the Senatorial +policy disclosed in the Versailles Treaty debate and insisted upon anew +to Mr. Hughes's grievous disappointment when the reservation was +attached to the separate peace with Germany. When it was realized that +Senate opposition to the Four Power Pact had been courted through the +inadvertent guaranty of the home islands of Japan, the agreement was +hastily modified to meet the Senate's views. President and Secretary of +State behaved at this juncture like a couple of clerks caught by their +employer in a capital error.</p> + +<p>And even Mr. Hughes's prominence was half accidental. The Senate is +strong in position but weak in men. Mr. Hughes is vastly Mr. Lodge's +superior in mind, in character, and in personality. Suppose the +situation reversed, suppose the Senate rich in leadership, suppose it +were Mr. Aldrich instead of Mr. Lodge who sat with Mr. Hughes in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the +Commission, then the Senate which had made the foreign policy in its +broad outlines would itself have filled in the details, and a Senator +instead of the Secretary of State would have been the chief figure of +the American delegation.</p> + +<p>Where did Mr. Harding's plan of settling international affairs by +conferences originate? You will find it in a document which Senator Knox +brought out to Marion, Ohio, in January, 1921. Reports had come to +Washington that Mr. Harding's Association of Nations, which was being +discussed with the best minds was only Mr. Wilson's league re-cast. The +leaders of the Senate met and agreed on a policy. Mr. Knox took it to +the President elect. Instead of a formally organized association there +was to be nothing more than international conferences and the +appointment of international commissions as the occasion for them arose. +Mr. Harding's policy is the Senate's policy.</p> + +<p>The Senate's victory has been complete. The United States did not ratify +the Versailles Treaty. It did not enter the League of Nations. It did +make a separate treaty of peace with Germany. It did not appoint a +member of the Reparations Commission—the Senate's reservation to Mr. +Hughes's treaty keeping that question in the control of Congress.</p> + +<p>Senatorial control of foreign relations seems now to be firmly +established. No future president, after Mr. Wilson's experiences with +the Versailles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> Treaty and Mr. Harding's with the Four Power Pact, will +negotiate important foreign engagements without informing himself fully +of the Senate's will. And the principle has been established that the +Senate shall be directly represented on American delegations to world +conferences.</p> + +<p>I recall this history of the recent conflict between the Executive and +the Senate over foreign relations to show how completely in this +important field the theory of presidential dominance has broken down and +been replaced by the practice of senatorial dominance. No amendment to +the constitution has taken place. The President still acts "with the +advice and consent of the Senate." Only now he takes the advice first so +as to be sure of the consent afterward, instead of acting first and +obtaining the advice and consent afterward.</p> + +<p>The Senate has been aided in this conflict with the Executive by the +constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority for the ratification +of a treaty. If a majority would suffice, a President, by invoking the +claims of party, by organizing public opinion, by judiciously using +patronage might put his agreements with foreign nations through. But a +two-thirds vote is not to be obtained by these methods; the only +practicable means is to accept the Senate's views of foreign policy and +conform to it.</p> + +<p>As soon as foreign relations became sufficiently important to fight over +the conflict was inevitable and the victory of the Senate certain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>The conflict between the two branches of the Government will not stop +with this victory of the Senate. It has always been present and probably +always will be. The importance of the domestic problems that the war +left will cause Congress to insist upon a free hand to make domestic +policies. In the past Congress busied itself about little except the +distribution of moneys for public buildings and river and harbor +improvement. The handling of these funds the legislative branch kept out +of executive control.</p> + +<p>Now public buildings and improvements have become relatively +unimportant. But the deepest economic interests of constituents are +involved. Formerly taxes were small and lightly regarded. Today their +incidence is the subject of a sharp dispute between classes and +industries.</p> + +<p>Furthermore the use of government credit for certain economic ends, such +as those favored by the farmers, will cause a clash between sections, +groups, industries, and strata of society. Policies of large importance +will have to be adopted about which there will be a vast difference of +opinion. The divergent interests cannot be represented in the White +House, for the Presidency embodies the compromise of all the interests. +They will have to find their voice in Congress. When they find their +voice the great policies will be made. And where the great policies will +be made there the power will be.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>CONGRESS AT LAST WITH SOMETHING TO DO HAS NO ONE TO DO IT</h3> + + +<p>When Lazarus was raised from the dead it took him a long time to find +out that he was again alive. His legs were stiff from being so long +extended. His arms were cramped from being decently arranged across his +breast. The circulation starting in his members produced disagreeable +sensations which recalled his mortal illness and the pains of +dissolution. The last thing that this discomfort suggested was life.</p> + +<p>Even thus it is with Congress, it has been so long dead that it is hard +for it to realize that it has once again come to life. It suffers from +various unpleasant sensations in its members, from blocs, from lack of +leadership, from indifference to party, from factionalism, from +individualism, from incapacity to do business. They are all vaguely +reminiscent of the pains of dissolution. On the dissolution theory they +are decent and explicable, for death is always decent and explicable.</p> + +<p>As signs of life they are scandalous, and everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> body is scandalized +over them for fear that a vital Congress will be something new to reckon +with.</p> + +<p>If Congress does realize that it has waked from the dead, who will be +worse scandalized than the senile persons whom the newspapers +respectfully call its "leaders"? What more threatening spectacle for +second childhood is there than first childhood?</p> + +<p>Suppose Congress were again a lusty and vigorous creature with the blood +of youth in its veins, how long would Henry Cabot Lodge, aged +seventy-two, remain leader of the Senate? Lodge, the irascible old man, +with worn nerves, who claps his hands for the Senate pages as if they +were not of the same flesh and blood with himself, and who would, if he +could follow his instincts, clap his hands in the same way to summon the +majority Senators, the recluse who is kept alive by old servants who +understand and anticipate every whim, to enjoy greedily the petty +distinctions that have come to him late because the Senate itself was +more than half dead?</p> + +<p>And who would be worse scandalized than the ancient committee chairman, +some with one foot in the grave? At one time in the first year of Mr. +Harding's administration the important chairmanships in the Senate were +disposed thus: Finance, the most powerful committee, Senator Penrose, a +dying man; Foreign Relations, Senator Lodge, 72; Interstate Commerce, +Senator Cummins, 72, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> broken with illness; Judiciary, Senator +Nelson, 79 and living back in the Civil War in which he served as a +private; Immigration, Senator Colt, 76.</p> + +<p>Suppose Congress should come to life and represent the real interests of +the various sections, classes, and, let us say, kinds of property and +business in this country—how long would the Senate remain such a +pleasant place to die in?</p> + +<p>When these old gentlemen made their successful fight upon President +Wilson they signed their own death warrants, and began putting an end to +the system that made their tenure possible. Only a Congress which had +long been a subject of public contempt could have fallen into and could +have remained in their hands. Granted that Congress is negligible, it +makes no difference who sits in it or how decrepit its leadership.</p> + +<p>But shift power once more to the legislative, and the various +conflicting interests throughout the country will grasp for the offices +now in enfeebled hands. And by taking predominance in foreign relations +away from the Executive and transferring it to themselves, the elderly +and infirm "leaders," who have been tolerated out of half contempt, have +started the avalanche of authority in their direction. It will sweep +them off their unsteady feet.</p> + +<p>Let us examine what they have done. When they opposed Mr. Wilson on the +Versailles Treaty they established the power of the Senate to mark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> out +broadly the foreign policy of the United States, a dangerous enough +beginning for persons who were merely tolerated because Congress was +nearly negligible and it was a matter of little difference to the public +who its managers were. But when they altered Mr. Harding's treaties they +also denied the authority of the Executive as the head of his party to +align them in support of his program.</p> + +<p>Party authority vested in the Executive thus impaired, it was not long +before the representatives of agricultural states also denied it, and +began to take their orders from the Farm Bureau Federation instead of +from the White House. Then the House leaders in open defiance of the +"head of the party" prepared and reported a soldiers' bonus bill which +contravened the express purposes of the Executive regarding this +legislation. Here we have the organization joining with the farm bloc in +declaring the legislature to be its own master.</p> + +<p>But on what do the octogenarian feet of Mr. Lodge and Mr. Cummins, and +Mr. Colt and Mr. Nelson, and the others, rest except upon party +authority? Not upon representing any real or vital principle in the +national life. Not upon any force of intelligence or personality.</p> + +<p>They move in a region of fictions. They represent the Republican party, +when there is no Republican party, no union on principles, no stable +body of voters, no discipline, no clear social end to be served.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>When votes for legislation must be had, Senator James Watson circulates +about among the faithless pleading in the name of party loyalty—as well +talk of fealty to Jupiter in the capitol of the Popes!</p> + +<p>In extremities the President, as "head of his party," is brought on the +scene,—for all the world like the practice of a certain cult which long +after its founder was dead used to dress up a lay figure to resemble him +and drive it about the marketplace, to reassure the faithful and confirm +the influence of the priests. Mr. Harding is alive enough, but the "head +of his party" is dead and a mere fiction of priests like "Jim" Watson.</p> + +<p>Power has passed or is passing from the Executive and has found no one +in Congress to receive it. The arrival of power causes as much +consternation on the hill as the outbreak of war does among the +incompetent swivel chair bureaucrats of an army in a nation that has +been long at peace.</p> + +<p>Power is passing to Congress because Congress says who shall pay the +taxes and who may use the public credit. Where there was one interest a +generation ago, there are many interests today, each trying to place the +burden of taxation upon others and reaching for the credit itself. +Taxation and credit are the big stakes today and Congress has them in +its atrophied grasp.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus8" id="illus8"></a> +<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR JAMES E. WATSON OF INDIANA</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The question what is the matter with Congress has received more answers +than any other question asked about American institutions. For almost +a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> generation the national legislature has been regarded as the one +great failure in self government. For years it has been the home of +small men concerned with petty things which it approached in a petty +spirit, incompetent, wasteful, and hypocritical, a trial to the +Executive, almost a plague to the country. It has shared with state +legislatures and municipal boards of aldermen the impatience of the +people. In spite of searchings of the public conscience it has gone from +bad to worse till it is at its lowest point today, in personnel, in +organization, in capacity to transact business.</p> + +<p>What has brought Congress to this state has been the unimportance of its +work, "doing such little things," as Mr. Root said after his six years +in the Senate. Natural economy prevents the sending of a man on a boy's +errand even if the man would go.</p> + +<p>The great power which legislatures have, that over the public purse, has +not been of enough importance to make Congress a great legislature. +Taxes were light and before the war fell so indirectly that the public +gave them little attention. The control of the budget virtually passed +out of the hands of Congress, for executive departments habitually +exceeded their appropriations and Congress always made up the +deficiencies. There was no tax upon incomes. Taxpayers were indifferent. +A few hundred millions more or less was of no account.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dispensations to business in the shape of protective duties upon +imports, a form of taxation which once made Congress a dominant factor +in national life, had become steadily less important as American +industry grew strong enough to hold its own market against competition +and to compete itself in other markets. With the subsidence of the +tariff as an issue Congress lost its last power to impose taxes in which +the country was deeply interested. Where the control of the public purse +and taxes are unimportant, legislatures are weak, unless executive +authority is vested in a Cabinet formed from among their members.</p> + +<p>With the enfeeblement of Congress through the growing unimportance of +the taxing power, its great function, came the tendency to magnify the +Executive. Power has to go somewhere, and it went down Pennsylvania +Avenue. And this movement coincided with the development of +centralization. Congress, which was full of the spirit of localism, was +not a perfect instrument of centralization. The Executive was.</p> + +<p>To elevate the President it was necessary to depress Congress. It became +the fashion to speak sneeringly of the Legislative branch, to sympathize +with presidents who "had Congress on their hands," to write of "the +shame of the Senate," and when any issue existed between the two parts +of the government to throw the force of public opinion on the side of +the executive. The press printed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> endless criticism of the Senate and +the House. Theories of government were invented to reduce Congress to a +subordinate place.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Congress, having regard for the character of its membership, +was agreed that incompetence should suffer no disabilities. All that was +required for political preferment within it was political longevity.</p> + +<p>The seniority rule, by which committee chairmanships went not to ability +but to long service, favored mediocrity and second childhood. Even more, +incompetence banded together jealously to protect itself against +competence and shunted it into minor assignments. While the public was +regarding Congress with contempt Congress was well satisfied to make +itself contemptible.</p> + +<p>Suppose we had developed a capacity for breeding statesmen in this +country, which we have not, would any man of first-class talents seek a +public career in such an institution as I have described? In the first +place, the people were visiting Congress with indifference, or worse +than indifference, and ambition will not serve under indifference. In +the next place that great power which makes legislatures dominant, the +power to tax and to distribute the fruits of taxation, had become +temporarily unimportant; and again, Congress itself was organized for +self-protection against brains and character.</p> + +<p>Senator Root quit the Senate in disgust. Senator<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> Kenyon has just +followed his example in even deeper disgust. A Tammany Congressman after +one term said, "They tie horses to Congressmen in Washington."</p> + +<p>Congress is upon the whole a faithful reflection of the American +political consciousness. Democracy is a relatively new thing. It has not +taken hold of the minds and hearts of men. Shadowy and half-unconscious +faiths dispute its place. De Gourmont writing of the persistence of +Paganism in Catholicism, says that no religion ever dies but lives on in +its successor. So no government ever dies but lives on in its successor. +Why take the trouble to govern yourselves when your vital interests are +so well directed by the higher governments, of Progress, of economic +Forces, of heroes and captains of industry who ruled by a sort of divine +right? The less you try to muddle through by means of poor human +instruments in this well-ordered world the better.</p> + +<p>For the limited tasks of self-government, why should special talents be +required? We are still near enough the pioneer age to adhere to pioneer +conceptions. Roosevelt, unfortunately, is the national ideal.</p> + +<p>We look hopefully for great amateurs like him among insurance agents, +building contractors, lawyers, country editors, bankers, retiring, with +modest fortunes made, into public life. We put the jack of all trades +everywhere. Into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> Presidency—and I don't know why we should not in +that office, for it is a waste of material and a misdirection of effort +in self-government to throw away a first-class public man on a four-year +job. Into the Senate and the House, into the Cabinet, where a lawyer +without previous experience of international affairs conducts our +foreign relations in the most difficult period of the world's history, +matching the power of his country against the wits of other countries' +practiced representatives, and thus obtaining a certain forbearance of +their extreme skill.</p> + +<p>Into the diplomatic posts, where an editor, Colonel Harvey, noted only +for his audacity, holds the most important ambassadorship. Those who +have seen the Colonel at meetings of the Supreme Council tell the +amazing story that he was a silent and uneasy figure in the conferences +of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Briand, perhaps because he is only an +observer, perhaps also because he was in the company of practiced +statesmen and diplomats.</p> + +<p>However, our system has its compensations. The picture of the robustious +Colonel uneasy in Zion is one of them.</p> + +<p>In another great diplomatic post is Mr. Richard Washburn Child, a +quantity producer of fiction, or sort of literary Henry Ford. In +another, Paris, the second most important in the world, Mr. Myron +Herrick, a retired business man. Senator Foraker said of him, at a +critical moment of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> public career, "<i>De mortuis nil</i>." "Don't you +wish to finish that quotation, 'nisi bonum,'" asked the reporter who was +seeking a statement. "No," said the Senator sharply; "De mortuis nil." +Of the ambassador to France nil, except that he comes from Ohio.</p> + +<p>But when we, given all these causes for the weakness of Congress, the +frail hold which the idea of self-government has upon the popular mind, +the unimportance of the taxing power, the tendency to concentrate on the +executive at the expense of the legislative, the obstacles to ability +which mediocrity has erected in Congress, we have not explained the +present extraordinary confusion and demoralization in the legislative +branch. Most of these causes have been operating for some time, yet +Congress has been able to function. Only since Mr. Harding became +President has the breakdown of Congress been marked.</p> + +<p>If you ask observers in Washington why the last Congress failed more +completely than any of its predecessors, with one voice they reply: +"Lack of leadership." Everybody cackles of leadership as if lack of +leadership were a cause and not a symptom. What is it that makes a +leader and followers unless it is a common purpose?</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus9" id="illus9"></a> +<img src="images/illus9.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>REPRESENTATIVE FREDERICK H. GILLETT OF MASSACHUSETTS</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The weakness of Mr. Harding, Mr. Lodge, Speaker Gillett, Mr. Mondell +lies partly in themselves, but it is made more apparent by the +difficulties that confront them. It traces back to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> uncertainties +in the national mind. Who could lead representatives of taxpayers +staggering under the costs of the war and representatives of soldiers +striving to lay an added burden on the taxpayers? Who could lead +representatives of farmers who demand that a large share of the credit +available in this country be mobilized by the government for the +subvention of agriculture and representatives of commerce and +manufacture who wish to keep the government from competing with them for +the stock of credit? Or labor which insists that the way to improve +business is by stimulating demand at home through liberal wages, +increasing consumption; and the other classes which insist that the way +to restore business is by making increased consumption possible to them +through lower prices only to be accomplished through lower wages? The +conflict runs across party lines. The old rallying cries fall on deaf +ears.</p> + +<p>The Republican party was based on the common belief that government +favors delivered at the top percolated down, by a kind of gravity that +operated with rough justice, to all levels of society, like water from a +reservoir on a hill reaching all the homes of a city. When you called +for loyalty to that you called for loyalty to everybody's stomach, +expressed in the half-forgotten phrase: "The full dinner pail."</p> + +<p>Now, the various elements of society are doubtful of what may reach them +by the force of gravity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> from the top. Each insists that government +favor shall enter at its level and be diffused from that center. Would +you make the nation happy and rich, give the soldiers a +five-billion-dollar bonus and start them buying? Give the farmers a +several-billion-dollar guarantee of their staples and start prosperity +on the farm. Give labor high wages and start prosperity there by +stimulating consumption. Give the consumer lower prices by cutting wages +and start prosperity there. Shift the burden of taxation somewhat from +wealth and start prosperity once more in the good old way by favors at +the top.</p> + +<p>One might compare the breakup that has occurred in this country to the +breakup that took place in Russia after the first revolution, the +peaceful and ineffective revolution of 1905. All parties in Russia +united against absolutism. A measure of representative government being +established and the main object of the revolution being achieved, all +parties fell to quarrelling among themselves as to which should profit +most by the new institutions.</p> + +<p>Under Mr. Roosevelt and his successors a mild revolution was +accomplished. People turned against economic absolutism. They had begun +to question the unregulated descent of favors from the top. They doubted +the force of gravity that used to fill dinner pails. They demanded some +representation in the process of filling dinner pails. They set up a +government at Washington to control credit and transportation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now they have fallen apart over who shall pay the taxes, who shall +have use of the credit, who shall profit by lowered freight rates, +rebates in principle, special favors in transportation, under a new +name.</p> + +<p>When men today deplore the lack of leadership they are comparing Mr. +Harding with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Lodge and Mr. Mondell +with Senator Hanna and Senator Aldrich. Today's chiefs of state are of +smaller stature. Mr. Harding has been a drifter all his life; he has not +the native force of Mr. Roosevelt, the sheer vitality which gloried in +overcoming obstacles. He has not the will of Mr. Wilson. The petulant +Lodge is not the same order of being as the brutal, thick-necked Hanna, +or the more finished but still robust Aldrich.</p> + +<p>But beyond this personal superiority which the leaders of the past had, +they enjoyed the advantage of standing upon sure ground. Mr. Hanna +belonged to that fortunate generation which never doubted, whether it +was in religion or morals or politics. He may not have put it so to +himself, but behind everything that he did lay the tacit assumption that +the business system was divinely ordained. The hand of Providence was +conspicuous everywhere in America's rise, but nowhere more than in the +rapid turning, unprecedented in the world's history, of minerals and +forests into a civilization.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>In times of daily miracles it is easy to believe. Mr. Hanna believed, +the public believed, Congress believed. Mr. Hanna spoke for this +divinely ordained system which was developing an undeveloped continent +as one had never been in the memory of man, making us all richer, with a +certain rough justice, according to our deserts.</p> + +<p>He himself was a pioneer. He himself had created wealth. He knew the +creators of wealth. He delivered the commandments handed down to him on +the mountain. With God so much on his side a much lesser man than Hanna +would have been a great leader. God isn't on the side of Mr. Lodge. That +is the difference.</p> + +<p>Mr. Aldrich represented a less pure faith. What had been a primitive +religion had become an established church. He had behind him a power of +organization in business and Congress that Hanna had not. The public may +have been less faithful; still the religion he represented was the +official religion.</p> + +<p>Like Hanna, he was rich and a creator of wealth; in addition he was +connected by marriage with the richest family in the United States. He +was the spokesman of business, and even if faith was decaying no one +seriously questioned the sacred character of business as the instrument +of Providence for making America great, rich, and free.</p> + +<p>The chief aim was the creation of wealth. No one could doubt that the +business organization<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> was accomplishing it with unparalleled success. +Perhaps the heads of the business organization kept a little too much of +the newly created wealth to themselves, but at least everyone shared in +it and it was wise to let well enough alone. Where there is such +substantial unity as existed at that time, no great personal qualities +are required for leadership.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Aldrich was not endowed with great personal qualities. He has +been gone from Washington only a dozen years, and yet no tradition of +him survives except that he managed the Senate machine efficiently. In +type he was the business executive. He represented more fully than +anyone else in the Senate the one great interest of the country. He +stood for a reality, and it gave him tremendous power.</p> + +<p>His mind was one of ordinary range. He traded in tariff schedules and +erected majorities upon the dispensing of favors. He bestowed public +buildings and river improvements in return for votes. Leaders have not +now these things to give or have them in insufficient quantities and on +too unimportant a scale.</p> + +<p>No great piece of constructive legislation serves to recall him. +Primarily a man of business, he nevertheless attached his name to the +grotesque Aldrich-Vreeland currency act. The work of the monetary +commission of which he was the head, and which led to the present +Federal Reserve Law, was the work of college professors and economists.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>Naturally a better leader than Mr. Lodge because he met men more easily +upon a common ground and had more vitality than the Massachusetts +Senator has, he was no better leader than any one of half a dozen +present Senators would be if the aim of business were accepted today by +the country as the great social aim, as it was in his day, and if any +one of the six now spoke for business in the Senate as in his time he +did.</p> + +<p>Give Mr. Brandegee or Mr. Lenroot or Mr. Wadsworth a people accepting +that distribution which worked out from extending to the heads of the +business organization every possible favor and immunity, as the +distribution best serving the interests of all, and add unto him plenty +of public buildings and river improvements, and he could lead as well as +Mr. Aldrich.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>INTERLUDE. INTRODUCING A FEW MEMBERS OF THE UPPER HOUSE BOOBOISIE AND +SOME OTHERS</h3> + + +<p>There is a saying that in American families there is only three or four +generations from riches to shirt sleeves. Mr. Hanna is the first +generation, Mr. Aldrich is the second generation. In Mr. Penrose and Mr. +Lodge you reach what is a common phase of American family history, the +eccentric generation. And in Senator Jim Watson and Senator Charles +Curtis, who are just coming on the scene as "leaders," you reach once +more political shirt sleeves.</p> + +<p>The American family dissipating its patrimony, produces invariably the +son who is half contemptuous of the old house that founded his fortunes, +who is half highbrow, who perhaps writes books as well as keeping them, +or it may be bolts to the other side altogether.</p> + +<p>So the Hanna-Aldrich stock produced Henry Cabot Lodge, a sort of +political James Hazen Hyde, who stayed at home and satisfied his longing +for abroad by serving on the Senate Foreign Relations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Committee. But +perhaps it would be fairer to Mr. Lodge to say of him what a witty +friend of mine did, "Lodge is what Henry James would have been if Henry +James had remained in America and gone into politics." Or he is what +Henry Adams might have been if Henry Adams had been less honest in his +contempt for democracy.</p> + +<p>The last leaf of that New England tree whose fruit was an expatriate +literature and expatriate lives, the limit of Mr. Lodge's expatriation +was an interest in foreign affairs when redder-blooded Americans were +happily ignorant of them. If business had been choosing spokesmen at +Washington it would no more have picked out Mr. Lodge than it would have +picked out James Hazen Hyde or Henry James. Mr. Lodge's leadership was a +sign of decay.</p> + +<p>But some will say business at this time had Senator Penrose as its +spokesman. I doubt it. Senator Penrose was that other son of the family +in whose blood runs all the ancestral energies without the ancestral +restraint.</p> + +<p>By the time he achieved prominence business in politics was no longer +quite respectable. People said, creating the Penrose legend, "Why, +Penrose would stop at nothing. He'd even represent the selfish interests +here in Washington." Therefore it was considered that he must represent +them. And he did to an extent, speaking for Henry C. Frick and some +others of Pennsylvania, but he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> in no adequate sense the successor +of Aldrich and Hanna.</p> + +<p>Had business chosen a spokesman at Washington, he must have been +respectable. Hanna was that most respectable of Americans, the highly +successful man who has played for and won a great fortune. Aldrich was +that equally respectable American, the conservative manager of the +established corporation.</p> + +<p>There is a story that when Penrose became boss of Pennsylvania the +Republican politicians of the State were anxious about the effect his +personal reputation would have upon the voters. Finally they went to +him, as the elders sometimes go to the young parson, and said, "The +organization thinks the people would like it better if you were +married," "All right, boys, if you think so," Penrose replied; "let the +organization pick the gal." The organization recoiled from this +cynicism. But business is harder. Business, if it had really identified +itself with Penrose, would have "picked the gal."</p> + +<p>No better evidence of the tenuity of his connection with business is +required than his outbreak in 1920, "I won't have the international +bankers write the platform and nominate the candidate at Chicago."</p> + +<p>Mr. Penrose enjoyed a "<i>succés de scandale</i>." He was what the hypocrites +in Washington secretly desired to be but lacked the courage to be. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +lived up to the aristocratic tradition, at its worst; which everyone +admires, especially at its worst. He did on a grand scale what anyone +else would have been damned for doing on a lesser scale and was loved +for being so splendidly shocking.</p> + +<p>He was the village sport, with the best blood of the village in his +veins, and was the village delight, the man about whom all the best +stories were whispered. He had the clear mind which comes from scorn of +pretense. But all this is not greatness, nor is it leadership. The +Republicans in the Senate before being led by Mr. Penrose would have +insisted on "picking the gal." They like to see framed marriage +certificates in the party household.</p> + +<p>The patrimony is gone and we reach shirt sleeves in Senator Charles +Curtis and Senator James Watson, one of whom will succeed Mr. Lodge when +he dies, retires, or is retired, and the other of whom will succeed Mr. +Cummins as president pro tem when he similarly disposes of himself or is +disposed of.</p> + +<p>Neither of them has the stature or solidity of Hanna or Aldrich, and +they will not have supporting them unity in party or in national +sentiment. Neither of them has the romantic quality of Mr. Penrose or +Mr. Lodge. Neither of them will ever be a leader in any real sense of +the word. Neither of them will have anything to lead.</p> + +<p>As frequently happens when you reach shirt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> sleeves by the downward +route, you find the accumulative instinct reasserting itself on a petty +scale. Look at the rather shabby clothes that Senator Curtis wears, in +spite of his considerable wealth, and you are sure that you have to do +with a hoarder. And that is what he is; a hoarder of political minutiæ.</p> + +<p>Current report is that he is the best poker player in either house of +Congress. You can imagine him sitting across the table watching the +faces of his antagonists with a cold eye, which no tremor of a muscle, +no faint coming or going of color, no betraying weakness escapes.</p> + +<p>That is his forte in politics, knowing all the little things about men +which reveal their purposes or operate in unexpected ways as hidden +motives.</p> + +<p>He has a perfect card catalogue of nearly all the voters of Kansas. It +is kept up to date. It reports not merely names and addresses but +personal details, the voter's point of view, what interests him, what +influences may be brought to bear on him. Curtis is a hoarder, with an +amazing capacity for heaping up that sort of information.</p> + +<p>His mind is a card catalogue of the Senate, vastly more detailed than +the card catalogue of Kansas. He watches the Senate as he watches the +faces of his antagonist in a poker game. He knows the little +unconsidered trifles which make men vote this way and that. And he is so +objective about it all that he rarely deceives himself. If into this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +concern with the small motives which move men there crept a certain +contempt of humanity he might mislead himself; he might be hateful, too; +but his objectivity saves him; he is as objective as a card catalogue +and no more hateful.</p> + +<p>But you see how far short all this falls from leadership, or +statesmanship, or greatness of any description. Usefulness is there +certainly; card catalogues are above all useful, especially when there +is variety and diversity to deal with, as there is coming to be in a +Senate ruled by blocs and frequented by undisciplined individualism.</p> + +<p>If Curtis kept a journal he would hand down to posterity a most perfect +picture of men and motives in Washington,—if, again, posterity should +be interested in the fleeting and inconsiderable figures who fill the +national capital "in this wicked and adulterous generation seeking for a +sign"—I am quoting the Bible trained Secretary of State in one of his +petulant moments.</p> + +<p>If he had the malice of Saint Simon, the journal would be diverting, but +he is without malice. He has no cynical conception of men's weakness and +smallness as something to play upon. He accepts Senators as they are, +sympathetically. What makes them vote this way and that is the major +consideration of politics. His records of the Kansas electorate are more +important to him than principles, policies, or morals. The efficient +election district Captain of the Senate, that is Curtis.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>A more likely successor to Lodge is "Jim" Watson of Indiana. I attended +a theatrical performance in Washington recently. Nearby sat the Indiana +Senator. His neighbor, whom I did not recognize, doubtless some +politician from Indiana, sat with his arm about Watson's neck, before +the curtain rose, pouring confidences into Watson's ear.</p> + +<p>Watson is given to public embraces. His arm falls naturally about an +interlocutor's shoulders or, and this is important as showing that Jim +is not merely patronizing, descending affectionately from the great +heights of the Senatorship, Jim himself, as at the theatre, is the +object of the embrace. But perhaps that is finer condescension.</p> + +<p>If the characteristic gesture of Lodge is the imperious clapping of his +hands for the Senate pages and the revealing trait of Curtis is +extraordinary intuition about the cards in other hands around the +lamp-lit table, the soul of Watson is in the embrace. His voice is a +caress. He kisses things through. He never errs in personal relations, +if you like to be embraced—and most men do, by greatness.</p> + +<p>In one of his less successful moments he represented, at Washington the +National Manufacturers' Association, at that time a rather shady +organization of lesser business men. If he had not been the orator that +he is he would have been with that circumambulatory arm of his, an +inevitable lobbyist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>For Watson is an orator, of the old school, the Harding school. They +employ the same loose style of speech, flabby as unused muscles, words +that come into your head because you have often heard them on the stump +and in the Senate, and read them in country editorials, words that have +long lost their precise meaning but evoke the old pictures in the minds +of an emotional and unthinking electorate. At this art of emitting a +long rumble of speech which is not addressed to the mind Watson has no +equal.</p> + +<p>It is an American art and puzzling to foreigners. Vice-Admiral Kato, not +the head of the Japanese delegation but the second Kato, had enough +English to remark it. "Your President," he said, "is a charming man, but +why does he put such funny things in his speeches?"</p> + +<p>In the mere mastery of this kind of English Mr. Harding may equal +Watson, but as an orator the Indianian has what the President never had; +the unctuous quality in him which makes him embrace readily lets him +pour out his soul freely. He has thunders in his voice, he tosses his +head with its fuzzy hair magnificently, he has gusto. He has +imagination. He is a big, lovable if not wholly admirable, boy playing +at oratory, playing at statesmanship, playing above all at politics. +Nothing is very real to him, not even money; he put all he had into an +irrigation project and left it there. Just now he irrigates with the +tears in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> voice the arid places in the Republican party where +loyalty should grow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus10" id="illus10"></a> +<img src="images/illus10.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR JOSEPH S FRELINGHUYSEN OF NEW JERSEY</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I present these characterizations of Senate leaders, past, present, and +future, to indicate through them what the Senate itself is, and to +suggest what conditions have given quite ordinary men power and how +feeble leadership has become, with the country no longer agreed how best +to promote the general good, and with Congress as it has been in recent +years a relatively unimportant factor in the national government.</p> + +<p>Senator Platt used to say of an habitual candidate for nomination to the +governorship of New York, Timothy L. Woodruff, "Well, it may taper down +to Tim." We have "tapered down to Tim,"—or rather to "Jim"—in the +Senate because as a people we have been indifferent and unsure, and +because there has been little use for anything but "Tims" or "Jims" in +Washington. Nature seems to abhor a waste in government.</p> + +<p>Those who ascribe all the troubles in Congress to lack of leadership, +and go no further, blame the poverty of our legislative life upon the +popular election of Senators and upon the choice of candidates at direct +primaries. But the decay began before the system changed. We resorted to +new methods of nomination and election because the old methods were +giving us Lorimers and Addickses. Probably we gained nothing, but we +lost little.</p> + +<p>Big business, so long as the taxing power,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> through the imposition of +the tariff, was important to it, and so long as it was accepted as the +one vital interest of the country, saw to it that it was effectively +represented in Congress. It was then somebody's job to see that at least +some solid men went to Washington. It has of late been nobody's job. +There has been no real competition for seats in the national +legislature.</p> + +<p>The Senate has tempted small business men who can not arise to the level +of national attention through their control of industry, and small +lawyers similarly restricted in their efforts for publicity. It is an +easily attained national stage.</p> + +<p>It appeals to that snobbish instinct—of wives sometimes—which seeks +social preferment not to be obtained in small home towns, or denied +where family histories are too well known.</p> + +<p>It allures the politician, bringing opportunity to play the favorite +game of dispensing patronage and delivering votes, with the added pomp +of a title.</p> + +<p>It is the escape of the aristocrat, whose traditions leave him the +choice between idleness and what is called "public service."</p> + +<p>It is the escape of the successful man who has found his success empty +and tries to satisfy the unsatisfied cravings of his nature. Such men +"retire" into it, as it was reported to President Harding's indignation +that one of the Chicago banker candidates for the Secretaryship of the +Treasury wished to retire into the Cabinet. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> enter it for one of +these motives, more from a combination of them, but, generally, it is +the promised land of the bored, some of whom find it only a mirage.</p> + +<p>A typical Senator is Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, one of the smaller +business men being drawn into public life. Son of a country minister, he +started as an insurance agent. Nature equipped him with unusual energy +and aggressiveness and those two qualities brought success in writing +insurance. Nothing in his early training inhibited his robust +temperament. Ruddy and vigorous, he is not sicklied o'er with any pale +cast whatever. Plainly he has a zest for life, that easily accessible +American life where good mixers abound.</p> + +<p>Not a highbrow, he yet recognizes that literature has its place, on all +four walls of a large room, and bought in sets.</p> + +<p>Having the American horror of loneliness, whether social or moral, you +find him always going along with his party. When his set divides he +balances between the two factions as long as possible and elects to go +with the more numerous. Simple, likable, honest, safe so long as +majorities are safe, and that is the theory we are working on, he is the +average man in everything but his aggressiveness and energy.</p> + +<p>No, he also rises above the average in possessing such a name as +Frelinghuysen. You enter his library and you see a banner of the +campaign of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Clay and Frelinghuysen. He will recite to you campaign +songs of those unsuccessful candidates for President and Vice-President. +Another Frelinghuysen was a Cabinet member. Another Frelinghuysen, of +the wealthier branch of the family, has an assured social position.</p> + +<p>None of these famous Frelinghuysens is an ancestor. Each of them is a +challenge. If he could have found an ancestor! If an insurance company +were a high place from which to survey the world at one's feet! But, no! +Ancestors, power, publicity, social prestige, all lie beyond the reach +of small business success.</p> + +<p>In the Senate men, important men, come to you for favors; it is so much +better than going to them to write policies. From the Senatorship you +condescend; there really is a world to which a Senator can condescend. +Washington is a social melting pot. No one asks whether you are one of +the Blanks. You are Senator Blank and that is enough. And if you are so +fortunate, by your very averageness, to attach yourself to the average +man whose fortune makes him President, and you become one of the Harding +Senators, one of the intimates, you are lifted up: like Bottom, you are +translated. You are the familiar of greatness.</p> + +<p>As a legislator you deal with policies, international and domestic, in +the realm of ideas—as when you sit in your library, four square with +all the wisdom of the ages.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>If you have enough of the boy about you, like Frelinghuysen, you enjoy +all this hugely. You have projected your ego beyond the limits of the +insurance business. You look among the branches of the Frelinghuysen +family tree without losing countenance. Who knows that there won't be +another "and Frelinghuysen" ticket, this time a successful one?</p> + +<p>Not every senator has escaped so nearly from the failures which attend +success as has Frelinghuysen. Nor is his escape complete. A sense of +unreality haunts him. Aggressiveness in his case covers it, as it so +often does a feeling of weakness. After he has blustered through some +utterance, he will buttonhole you and ask, "Did I make a damn fool of +myself? Now, the point I was trying to make was, etc. Did I get it +clear? Or did I seem like a damn fool?"</p> + +<p>Less agile minded than Senator Edge, he watches the motions of his New +Jersey colleague as a fascinated bird watches those of a snake or a cat. +Intellectually he is not at ease, even in the Senate.</p> + +<p>Another of the Harding set is Harry New of Indiana, one of the "Wa'al +naow" school of statesmen, in dress and speech the perfect county +chairman of the stage. The broad-brimmed black felt hat, winter and +summer, has withstood all the insidious attacks of fashion. The nasal +voice has equally resisted all the temptations to conformity with the +softer tones which are now everywhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> heard. In politics one has to be +regular, and New has the impulse to individuality, which with Borah and +LaFollette manifests itself in political isolation. With New it +manifests itself in hat and speech. New thus remains a person, not +merely a clothes-horse which is recorded "aye" when Mr. Lodge votes +"aye" and "no" when Mr. Lodge votes "no." But this is hardly fair. Mr. +New has been irregular in other ways. He has not made money; he has lost +it, a fortune in a stone quarry. He is indifferent to it. This marks him +as a person. He would rather whip a stream for trout than go after +dollars with a landing net.</p> + +<p>Whipping a stream for trout is the clue to Harry New. If you are a +fisherman you impute all sorts of wiles to the fish. You match your wits +against the sharp wits under the water, and your ego is fortified when, +the day being dark and your hand being cunning, you land a mess from the +stream. The world is a trout stream to New. The hat and the nasal accent +are the good old flies that Isaak Walton recommended.</p> + +<p>There is the type of mind which sees craft where others see simplicity. +We associate shrewdness with the kind of hat New wears and the kind of +voice he has preserved against the seductions of politeness. It is one +of our rural traditions. Suppose shrewdness that asks no more than +conversation and a small mess of fish. It is delightful. As we listen to +it arriving after the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> most penetrating exposition at the same +conclusions which we have reached directly and stupidly, we are +flattered. We realize that we, too, are shrewd, unconsciously so, as, +wasn't it Molière's bourgeois gentleman, who learned that he was +unconsciously a gentleman, since he had been doing all his life some of +the things that gentlemen did?</p> + +<p>A playboy of the western plains, New would be happier if his colleague, +Jim Watson, did not also take himself seriously as a politician. "Jim," +says New, "is an orator, a great orator, but he ought to let politics +alone; as a politician he is, like all orators a child."</p> + +<p>New is no orator. A fair division would be for Watson to be the orator +and New the politician. But no one is ready to admit that he is no +politician. For New politics is craft; for Watson it is embraces. At a +dinner in Indiana, New contrived to have his rival for the senatorship, +Beveridge, and the politically outlawed Mayor of Indianapolis, Lew +Shank, not invited. Watson would have led them both in with an arm +around the neck of each. That individualism which makes New preserve the +hat and the accent makes him punish foes, or is it that the sense of +being "close to Harding" robs him of discretion?</p> + +<p>In the board of aldermen of any large city you will find a dozen +Calders, local builders or contractors, good fellows who have the gift +of knowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> everyone in their districts, who by doing little favors here +and there get themselves elected to the municipal legislature; they see +that every constituent gets his street sign and sidewalk encumbrance +permits, interview the police in their behalf when necessary, and the +bright young men who compose the traditional humor of the daily press +refer to them gaily as "statesmen."</p> + +<p>The art of being a Senator like Calder is the art of never saying "no." +He is worth mentioning because he has the bare essentials of +senatorship, the habit of answering all letters that come to him, the +practice of introducing by request all bills that anyone asks to have +introduced, industry in seeking all jobs and favors that anyone comes to +him desiring.</p> + +<p>He "goes to the mat" for everybody and everything. He shakes everybody's +hand. He is a good news source to representatives of the local press and +is paid for his services in publicity. New York is populous and sent +many soldiers to the late war. Nevertheless, the mother or father of a +soldier from that state who did not receive a personal letter from +Calder must have eluded the post office.</p> + +<p>He votes enthusiastically for everything that everybody is for. He is +unhappy when he has to take sides on sharply debated issues. Morality is +a question of majorities. He finds safety in numbers.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus11" id="illus11"></a> +<img src="images/illus11.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR HARRY S. NEW OF INDIANA</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nature was not kind to Calder; it left him with no power to throw a +bluff. He is plainly what he is. He has neither words nor manner. His +colleagues look down on him a little. But most of them are after all +only Calder plus, and plus, generally speaking, not so very much. He is +the Senator reduced to the lowest terms.</p> + +<p>Calder is timid, more timid than Frelinghuysen with his eternal +buttonholing you to ask what impression he has made, more timid than +anyone except Kellogg of Minnesota. The latter is in a constant state of +flutter. Little and wisplike physically he seems to blow about with +every breeze of politics. He is so unsure that his nerves are always on +edge, in danger of breaking. When he was balancing political +consequences over nicely during the League of Nations discussion, +Ex-President Taft said to him impatiently: "The trouble with you, Frank, +is that you have no guts." Kellogg straightened up all his +inches—physically he is a white-haired and bent Will H. Hays—and +replied, "I allow no man to say that to me." He fluttered out, and Mr. +Taft being kind-hearted followed him to apologize.</p> + +<p>If you could analyze the uneasiness of Mr. Kellogg you would understand +the fear which haunts the minds of all Senators. Mr. Kellogg comes to +Washington after an enormously successful career at the bar. He is rich. +He is respected. His place in society is secure. What would the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> loss of +the senatorship mean to such a man? He ought to have all the confidence +which is supposed to be in the man who rises in the world, all that +which comes from an established position. Unlike most great lawyers who +retire into the Senate, Mr. Kellogg does not merely interest himself in +constitutional questions, like a child with molasses on its fingers +playing with feathers. He is industrious. He interests himself in the +Senate's business. He develops nice scruples which can not be brushed +aside. He wears himself out over them. He hesitates. He trembles. The +certainty with which his mind must have operated in the field of legal +principles deserts him in the field of political expediency. Or perhaps +it is that he sees both principles and expediency and can not choose +between the two.</p> + +<p>Wadsworth of New York is an exception to the general run of Senators. He +belongs by birth to the class which is traditionally free from +hypocrisy. He is not boisterously contemptuous of the slavishness of +Senators as Penrose was. He is quietly contemptuous. His voice has a +note of well-bred impatience in it. He has not Penrose's pleasure in +mere shocking, but he has the aristocratic hatred of moral ostentation. +The kind of thing that is not done is the kind of thing that is not +done. You don't do it and make no parade of your abstinence. Wadsworth +does not open his home to all his New York colleagues in both houses +just because it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> politically expedient. His house is his own, and +so is his conscience, which is not surrendered at the demands of woman +suffrage or of the dries. He has courage. He has convictions. He is +lonely. To be otherwise than lonely in the Senate you must be a +Frelinghuysen, an Elkins, a Newberry, a New, a Watson, or a Hale. He +will never be a leader. He has no more place in the Senate as it is than +Lord Robert Cecil, a much larger man, has in the House of Commons as it +is. Both belong to another day and generation. Neither is sure of +anything but himself and each counts the world well lost. Both represent +the aristocratic tradition.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus12" id="illus12"></a> +<img src="images/illus12.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR JAMES W. WADSWORTH OF NEW YORK</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Industry makes Reed Smoot one of the most useful of the Senators. He has +a passion for details. He reads all the bills. He makes himself a master +of the Government's appropriations and expenditures. He exudes figures +from every pore. By temperament Mr. Smoot is unhappy, and he finds cause +of dark foreboding in the mounting costs of government. His voice has a +scolding note. His manner and appearance is that of a village elder. His +heart is sore as he regards the political world about him, its +wastefulness, its consumption of white paper, on leaves to print and on +reports which no one reads. He is the aggrieved parent. "My children," +he seems always to say, "you must mend your ways." He specializes in +misplaced commas. Nothing is too trivial for his all seeing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> eyes. In +committee he talks much, twice as much as anyone else, about points +which escape the attention of all his colleagues. Senators, wishing to +get through no matter how, regard him as a pest. Only an unimaginative +and uncreative mind can occupy itself as Smoot's does. He is a building +inspector rather than a builder. With his fussiness, his minor prophetic +voice, his holier-than-thou attitude toward waste, he can never be a +leader of the Senate to which the idle apprentice, the good fellow, who +dines out much in the Harding Senatorial set, the small business man +seeking a place in society, give its tone and character.</p> + +<p>One can not present a complete gallery of the Senate in the space of a +single chapter. I have chosen a few characteristic figures, the leaders +past, present, and to come, the small business man who seeks social +preferment or the destruction of a title in Washington, such as Calder +and Frelinghuysen, the politician who likes to play the game better in +the Capitol than at home, like New, the aristocrat who escapes from the +boredom of doing nothing into the boredom of a democratic chamber, the +gradgrind legislator of whom there are few like Smoot, the half party +man, half bloc man like Capper.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus13" id="illus13"></a> +<img src="images/illus13.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR WILLIAM M. CALDER OF NEW YORK</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>All of these men belong to a party and are limited by that party's +weakness, its lack of principles, the caution which it has to use in +avoiding the alienation of its loosely held supporters. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> party +program is something on which all kinds of people can stand. Necessarily +the party men in the Senate are tied down to a cause that is largely +negative. They can not be other than feeble and ineffective figures.</p> + +<p>The weakness of parties has led to the emergence of a few outstanding +individual Senators who must be examined to see whether around them the +new Senate which will come with the shift of power and responsibility to +the legislative branch can be built. The most brilliant and interesting +of them is Senator Borah, but it is significant that the farm bloc +looking for a leader did not turn to him, but chose rather much less +significant and effective men.</p> + +<p>Yet the Idaho Senator seems the natural rallying point for any movement +which will give new life and force to the Senate. He is established. He +is the most potent single individual in the upper house. So far as there +is any opposition to President Harding and his friends, Mr. Borah is +that opposition. His is the intelligence which inspires the Democratic +party when it consents to be inspired by intelligence. He believes that +the revolution has come, not one of street fighting and bomb throwing +but a peaceful change which has made the old parties meaningless, +destroyed the old authorities and set men free for the new grouping that +is to take place. Others in the Senate see this and are frightened. +Borah sees it and is glad.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> His bonds are loosed and he is a vastly +braver, sincerer and more effective Senator than ever before.</p> + +<p>It is absurd to use the word radical of Borah, Johnson, or LaFollette, +for none of them is truly radical; but if one must do so for the lack of +any better term, then Borah is the conservatives' radical. The angriest +reactionary remains calm when his name is mentioned, perhaps because +Borah never gets into a passion himself and never addresses himself to +popular prejudice. He is not a mob orator. He is impersonal in his +appeals. No one any longer suspects him of an ambition to be President. +He seems, like a hermit, to have divorced himself from the earthly +passions of politics and to have become pure intellect operating in the +range of public affairs. He is almost a sage while still a Senator.</p> + +<p>If we had the custom of electing our Ex-Presidents to the Senate, you +can imagine one of them, beyond the average of intelligence, freed from +ambition through having filled the highest office, occupying a place +like that of Borah.</p> + +<p>Borah perhaps likes it too well ever to descend into the market place +and become a leader. His is an enviable lot, for he is the most nearly +free man in Washington; why should he exchange the immunity he possesses +for a small group of followers? Besides he believes in the power of +oratory rather than in the power of organization. He said to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> at the +Republican Convention of 1916, "I could stampede this crowd for +Roosevelt." The crowd was thoroughly organized against Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>Nature made him an orator, one of the greatest in the country. And he +has come to be satisfied with the gift he has. The unimportance of his +state, Idaho, has freed him from any illusions about himself with +respect to the Presidency. The habit of carrying a comb in his vest +pocket marks him as free from the social ambitions which number more +victims in the Senate than the ambition for the presidency. He is almost +a disembodied spirit politically, of the revolution he discerns he will +be a spectator.</p> + +<p>Hiram Johnson is a declining figure. I see no reason to modify the +conclusion which was reached about him in the <i>Mirrors of Washington</i>, +that he thought more of men than of principles and especially of one +man, Johnson. The test of his sincerity came when the vote was reached +on the unseating of Senator Newberry for spending too much money in the +Michigan primaries.</p> + +<p>Johnson's great issue a year before had been sanctity of popular +nominations. Yet when he had an opportunity to speak and act against a +brazen even though foolish attempt to buy a nomination, he was rushing +wildly across the continent, arriving after the vote had been taken.</p> + +<p>On reaching Washington, he called his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> newspaper friends before him to +explain the difficulties and delays that had made him late. When he had +finished a nasal voice from the press remarked, "Senator, there will be +great public sympathy with you as a victim of the railroads. But the +people will only know how great their loss has been if you will tell +them now how you would have voted if you had been here." Johnson +adjourned the meeting hastily without a reply.</p> + +<p>The absence from the roll call and the theatrical attempt to make it +appear accidental were typical. Johnson had won the Michigan primaries +in the national campaign of 1920. The delegates were in control of +Newberry's political friends. They remained firm for Johnson throughout +the balloting. Johnson avoided voting against their leader although his +principles required that he should lead the fight for his unseating.</p> + +<p>Johnson has always over-emphasized Johnson. At the Progressive +convention in 1912 when Roosevelt was nominated for the Presidency and +Johnson for the Vice-Presidency, it was proposed, since both were in +attendance, to bring both on the stage and introduce them to the +delegates. The natural order was Roosevelt first, since he was the +nominee for President and since he was, moreover, one of the most +distinguished figures in the world, and Johnson, since he had second +place, second. But Johnson would go second to no man. Either he must +show himself on the stage first or not at all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> Finally it was +compromised by presenting them together at the same moment, holding +hands upon the platform.</p> + +<p>Johnson can never see himself in proper perspective. At the Progressive +convention he was more important than Roosevelt. In the Newberry case +his political fortunes were more important than honest primaries.</p> + +<p>Senator Reed of Missouri is possessed of a devil. He is a satirist +turned politician. He has the <i>saeva indignatio</i> of Swift. American life +with its stupidity, its facile optimism, its gullibility, its easy +compromises, its hypocrisy, fills him with rage. His face is shot red +with passion. His voice is angry. He is a defeated idealist left in this +barren generation without an ideal. He might have been led away by the +war as so many were, as Wilson was, into the belief that out of its +sufferings would come a purified and elevated humanity. But Reed is hard +to lead away. Where other men see beauty and hope he searches furiously +for sham. Where other men say cheerfully half a loaf is better than no +bread he puts the half loaf on the scales and proves that it is short +weight.</p> + +<p>An old prosecuting attorney, he believes that guilt is everywhere. He is +always out for a conviction. If the evidence is insufficient he uses all +the arts, disingenuous presentations, appeals to prejudice, not because +he is indifferent to justice but because the accused ought to be hanged +anyway,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> and he is not going to let lack of evidence stand in the way of +that salutary consummation.</p> + +<p>He conducts a lifelong and passionate fight against the American +practice of "getting away with it." Shall Hoover get away with it as a +great and pure man, the benefactor of the race! Not while Jim Reed has +breath in his body! Here is an American idol, tear it down, exhibit its +clay feet! Shall Wilson "get away with it," with his League of Nations +and his sublimated world set free from all the baser passions of the +past? Not while any acid remains on Jim Reed's tongue!</p> + +<p>Reed is sincere. He hates sham. He nevertheless himself uses sham to +fight sham. He is the nearest thing to a great satirist this country has +developed. And the amazing consideration is that in a nation which +dislikes satire a satirist should be elected by the suffrage of his +fellows.</p> + +<p>Probably it is only in politics that we tolerate satire. In +self-government we only half believe. We are divided in our own minds. +We make laws furiously and laugh at the laws we make. We pretend that +the little men of politics are great and then privately we indicate our +real perception of the truth by telling how small they are. Politics is +suspect and it stamps you as a person of penetration to show that you +are aware what sham and dishonesty there is in them. It is almost as +good an evidence of a superior mind as to say, "Of course I don't +believe what I read in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> newspapers." Now satire is enjoyed by +superior minds, and it is only with regard to politics that we as a +people have superior minds, politics not being like business the pursuit +of honest everyday folk.</p> + +<p>Jim Reed is then that part of ourselves which tells us that +self-government is a good deal of a sham, in the hands of amusing +charlatans. We tolerate him in perhaps the only place where we would +tolerate a satirist, in the Senate. And in the Senate they fear him.</p> + +<p>He was attacking the Four Power Pact. "People say," he declared, "that +this ends the Anglo-Japanese alliance. I do not find it in the pact. I +do not find it nominated in the bond," he shouted. And the friends of +the pact sat silent afraid of Reed's power as a debater, until Senator +Lenroot having studied the document several minutes in the cloakroom +read the plain language of the agreement to end the alliance. Reed +almost "got away with it" himself. But this is not leadership. One does +not follow a satirist. One makes him a privileged character at most.</p> + +<p>Reed and Borah are privileged characters each in his own way. The +privilege of being "queer" is as old as the herd itself. The harmless +insane man was almost sacred in primitive society. The "fool" was the +only man whose disrespect did not amount to <i>lése majesté</i>. The wisdom +of the "fool" was regarded with a certain awe and admiration. But the +death rate among those who sought this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> franchise must have been high. +It must be personality which decides who survives and achieves this +license and who does not, a nice capacity for adjustment, a rare sense +of what the crowd will endure. Borah and Reed have it, LaFollette has +not or has not chosen to exercise it.</p> + +<p>George Moore somewhere says that if you can convince a woman that it is +all play, all Pan and nymph, between you and her, you have the perfect +way of a man with a maid, when his aim is something short of matrimony. +But if you are too serious about it—! LaFollette is perhaps too serious +about it. If he could have said what he had to say with a laugh and so +as to raise a laugh he might have been privileged like Reed, or, if he +had to be serious, he should have been serious like Borah, in a detached +and impersonal fashion; then perhaps he might still have been something +less than the public enemy that he is. But LaFollette is serious, +terribly serious, terribly in earnest. He has had convictions, clung to +them, and probably suffered more for them than any man in Washington.</p> + +<p>The Wisconsin Senator is one of the least understood men in public life. +In the Senate he speaks violently, with a harsh voice and an excess of +manner. He is small and some of this loudness and emphasis is no doubt +that compensation for lack of stature and presence to which men +unconsciously resort; some of it is an exterior which has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> been +cultivated to cover up an unusually shy and sensitive heart. The +character in history and fiction which most intrigues him is Hamlet, +that gentle soul unfit for life. He has spent years studying the shy +Dane. He himself is a Hamlet who has taken up arms against a sea of +troubles. The "queer" man who would gain a franchise for his "queerness" +must not be sensitive. The crowd likes better to persecute than to +tolerate.</p> + +<p>Then too LaFollette entered the Senate when minorities were less +tolerable than they are today. He got the stamp of impossible when +Roosevelt led a movement in his direction and he refused to be a part of +it. Thus he became isolated, neither Progressive nor Old Guard. You can +not safely be too uncompromising, too serious. It makes no difference if +you were right in rejecting both wings of the party as reactionary which +they speedily proved to be. It makes no difference if you were right in +opposing the war, and no one is so sure today that LaFollette was wrong +in doing so as men were when it was proposed to expel him from the +Senate. Justification after the fact does no good. It is not your +wrongness that they hate; it's your uncompromising quality, and that +remains more unbreakable than ever.</p> + +<p>An unusual loyalty explains the unwillingness to compromise. LaFollette +attaches himself deeply. A characteristic act was his leaving the Senate +for months to nurse a sick son back to health. It sets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> him apart from +most men, who do not let sickness in the family interfere with their +business and perform their full duty when they hire a trained nurse. +People think of LaFollette, the public man, as an egoist but this +nursing of his son showed the utmost absence of egoism. And so it is +with all his intimate relations, which are unusually sweet and tender.</p> + +<p>Whatever he is like privately, publicly he is placed, rated, catalogued; +the general mind is made up. The farm bloc no more turned to him than to +Borah for leadership. He will always remain isolated.</p> + +<p>Now that party discipline has been broken down, what nonconformist +Senators suffer most from is the tyranny of the teapot. Senator Kenyon +referred to it when he said Newberry on trial for fitness for his seat +"floated back into the Senate on an ocean of tea." An unparliamentary +version of the same reference to the social influence is: "The Senate is +one long procession of dinners and hootch."</p> + +<p>If you are regular politically you are regular socially. Given the habit +of voting with the crowd, of putting others at ease by a not too great +display of intellect, a good cook, a pre-war cellar, and a not +impossible wife, and you belong to the Senatorial middle class, the new +rich insurance agents, lawyers, miners, and manufacturers who control +the fate of the socially ambitious. You may not be invited to the +Wadsworths', or may be seldom asked there. But you are accepted by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> what +Mencken might call the wealthy "booboisie," the circle Mr. Harding +frequented before he was advanced to the White House.</p> + +<p>If you don't you are of the Senatorial proletariat. You are invited out +seldom or not at all. You have to organize a little set of +intellectuals, not found in the Senate, for your wife's tea parties.</p> + +<p>Senator Kenyon was a moderate nonconformist. Intellectually he was +honest, but not strong, so that an outsider might have thought that his +honesty and independence would be overlooked. But he was never accepted +by the "booboisie." He was virtually cold shouldered out of the Senate, +for it was with immense relief that he escaped from teapot ostracism to +the securer social area of the Federal bench.</p> + +<p>I repeat a bit of gossip about the Iowa Senator without vouching for it. +When he was retiring, it is said, a reporter asked, "What can be done +with the Senate?" "Nothing," replied the Iowan, "The only thing to do is +to destroy it." If he said this he really flattered the "booboisie." +Destruction is reserved for wicked things like Sodom and Gomorrah. But +the Senate is not wicked. It is good, honest in the sense of not +stealing, well-meaning, timid, petty, tea-drinking, human, commonplace. +You can't destroy it unless you have something to put in its place, and +there is nothing. Much better turn it over to the blocs and see what +they will do with it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>A PEAK OF REALITY THRUSTS UP ON THE LEVEL PLAIN OF SHAMS</h3> + + +<p>As well fear blocs and minorities as fear the centrifugal force on the +ground that it is seeking to pull us off the face of the earth. +Minorities are the centrifugal force of politics. They maintain the +balance of forces which makes political existence possible. Without them +the State would become unbearable; it would destroy us or we should be +compelled to destroy it.</p> + +<p>We have just passed through a period, the war, in which minorities were +suppressed, in which the general will brooked no resistance, in which +the bodies of men between certain ages and the minds of men and women of +all ages were brought into compulsory service of the State. The mental +draft dodger went to jail just as much as the physical draft dodger.</p> + +<p>A Chief of an Industrial Workers of the World Longshoremans' Union was +sentenced for twenty years because he was an I. W. W., although under +his direction his organization handled efficiently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> all the munitions of +war shipped from Philadelphia. He "obstructed the war" by his thoughts +as an I. W. W., even though his actions as a citizen contributed to +success in the war.</p> + +<p>One may tolerate during a national emergency the oppression that results +from the crushing of minorities, but in time of peace it is only in the +balance of political forces that political existence may go on.</p> + +<p>All freedom is the work of minorities and so is all change. Respect for +opinion is dearly bought by them. Majority views were all once minority +views. Some political theorists even go so far as to say that all +governments, no matter what apparent precautions are taken to represent +majorities, are really conducted by minorities. Without the effective +resistance of minorities the general will may become tyrannous or +without the stimulus they afford it may become inert.</p> + +<p>The blocs and minorities that are appearing in American public life are +accomplishing a measure of decentralization. The highly centralized +government which we recently built up is itself passing into the control +of the various economic subdivisions of society. In them rather than in +it is coming to be final authority.</p> + +<p>Take freight rates for an illustration. Originally they were localized, +in the unrestricted control of the railroad managers. Then they were +slightly centralized in the partial control of state and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> partial +control of national authorities. Then control was wholly centralized in +the Inter-State Commerce Commission at Washington, the States being +denied effective authority even over rates within their own borders.</p> + +<p>There you have bureaucracy at its worst, authority in the hands of an +appointive commission, thousands of miles, in many cases, from the place +where it was applied, and a public feeling its impotence, which is the +negation of self-government.</p> + +<p>Then comes the first step in decentralization. No locality, no State was +big enough to reach out and get back the authority over its own railroad +service that it once had. But the organized farmers of the whole country +were able to take into their hands the power over the railroads as it +affected them. Nominally the Inter-State Commerce Commission still makes +rates. Practically the farmers, having the balance of power in the House +and Senate, say what rates they want on agricultural products and get +them. That is decentralization.</p> + +<p>The division into States which the jealous colonists preserved in +forming the Union has largely lost its significance. Men divide now +according to their interests, not according to boundaries that may be +learned in the school geographies. As the States weakened many of their +powers gradually tended to be centralized in the national government. As +the newer economic subdivisions of society become organized and +self-assertive some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> of the power thus centralized in Washington +devolves upon them, not legally or formally, but actually and in +practice. They constitute minorities too large to be denied.</p> + +<p>It is only through decentralization that popular institutions can be +kept alive, only through it that government remains near enough to the +people to hold their interest and only through it that freedom from an +oppressive State is preserved.</p> + +<p>Why should minorities be regarded with such aversion? Why should +President Harding declaim against them so persistently? Our Federal +Constitution is written full of safeguards for minorities. The reservoir +of power is in the minorities, the States, the local subdivisions which +feared the loss of their identity and independence through the central +government they were creating.</p> + +<p>Only powers expressly yielded by the local units may be assumed by the +Republic. The States were the minorities; they felt when they joined the +Union that their rights as minorities had to be jealously guarded, in +order that they might have the realities of self-government.</p> + +<p>You have in the rule that the small State must have as many Senators as +the large State a sharp assertion of the right of geographical +minorities. If the larger States had not accepted this principle the +smaller States would never have joined the Union.</p> + +<p>Gradually these geographical minorities lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> their importance in the +public consciousness. Our people had come and kept coming to this +country from the ends of the earth. Arriving here they continued to be +nomads, sweeping over the West in search of new pasture lands or more +fertile soil, moving from the farm to the city and thrusting their roots +in nowhere. No difference of language or customs set up arbitrary +frontiers.</p> + +<p>Moreover we were the first people to settle a land where modern methods +of locomotion destroyed the use and wont of limited localities. Instead +of being citizens of New York united with the citizens of New Jersey, +Connecticut, and the rest of them for the common defense, as our +forefathers imagined, we became citizens of the United States, which was +divided into New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the rest for +purposes of policing, road-making, and other functions that could be +better managed at home than from Washington.</p> + +<p>A State began to assume about the same place in the Union that a county +does in a State.</p> + +<p>The basic reality for our forefathers was the State, the Union existing +for the convenience of the States. The basic reality for us is the +Union, the States existing for the convenience of the Union, which is +too vast to administer everything from a central point.</p> + +<p>As the geographical subdivisions lost their significance economic +subdivisions rose to take their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> place. The farmer of Kansas began to +have more in common with the farmer of Iowa than he had with the coal +miner of his own State. The nationwide organization of farmers resulted, +and it is a more real unit in the political consciousness than is that +unit on which the Fathers laid such stress, the State. It is a minority +that has no reserve rights under the Constitution but which achieves its +rights by force of numbers and organization.</p> + +<p>These economic subdivisions are the reality today. The United States is +a union of the State of Agriculture, the State of Labor, the State of +Manufacturing, and a dozen other occupational States of greater or less +importance. And after all why should not Agriculture, Manufacturing, +Labor, Foreign, and Domestic Commerce form a union for the national +defense, carefully reserving essential powers to themselves as States, +just as the thirteen original colonies did? Why should we let this new +political organism keep us awake nights?</p> + +<p>Nationally we have a complex on the subject of disunion. Fortunate +perhaps is the country which is subject to the pressure of a foreign +enemy on its border, as France is, for example, to that of Germany. If +you have a convenient foe to be afraid of you do not have to be afraid +of yourselves. It seems to be the rule that nations like individuals +must have fears and the American phobia is that this country will +proceed amœba-wise by scission, into several countries. When we feel +a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> weakening at the center we feel a horror in the peripheries.</p> + +<p>We fought one great war to prevent a breaking up of the Union and +whenever we hear the word "section," we become apprehensive. And just as +"section" fills our minds with fear of cleavage upon geographical lines, +so "class" arouses anxiety over cleavage upon social lines. "Class" +calls up the spectre of socialism. "Bloc" moreover is a word of unhappy +associations. It brings into the imagination Europe with all its turmoil +and its final catastrophe.</p> + +<p>The Civil War left us with one complex. The European War left us with +another. The agricultural bloc touches both, suggesting division and +upon European lines. Being agricultural it is vaguely sectional; being +the projection of a single interest into national politics so as to cut +across parties, it follows European precedents. It moreover derives its +name from abroad.</p> + +<p>Call it log-rolling by the farmers, however, and it relates to the +habitual method of American legislation. It conforms to our best +traditions. We never spoke of the groups which filled pork barrels of +the past as blocs, but every river and harbor bill was the work of +minorities uniting to raid the treasury. The two recent amendments to +the Constitution, granting the suffrage to women and prohibiting the +manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, were also achieved +minorities.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>The organized minorities of the past dissolved when their end was +obtained. They had a specific rather than a general purpose. Usually it +was a moral purpose, the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, or political +justice for woman. Never until recently did a minority raise the +economic interests of one section of society against those of the rest +of society and promise to keep on raising them. The farm bloc is the +first permanent economic minority to organize itself effectively for +political action.</p> + +<p>The phenomenon is not that the bloc impairs our political system; it +does not; majority rule is always tempered by minority rule or it +becomes either a tyranny or a dead thing. It is that it threatens our +pocketbooks. It obtains low railroad rates on farm products. It shifts +taxes from farmers to the rest of us. It secures for farmers special aid +in the form of government credits.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless its appearance is the most hopeful sign in Washington that +we may emerge from the governmental bog into which we have sunk. We had +centralized to the point of creating an immense and dull bureaucracy +headed by a weak Executive and equally weak Congress. Interest in +self-government was being destroyed by the mere remoteness and +irresponsiveness of the mechanism. "The parties are exactly alike. What +difference does it make which is in power?"</p> + +<p>We had created an organization too vast for any one to take it in hand. +And the only remedy in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> that case is to break the organization down. +Decentralization into States was impossible, for men never go back to +outworn forms, and State boundaries had ceased to be the real lines of +division in American society. A way out of this difficulty has been +found through the seizing of power by occupational organizations, of +which the farm bloc is the most famous and most successful.</p> + +<p>We could not go on as we are, with an enfeebled Executive and an +enfeebled Congress. And, if I have analyzed the situation correctly, we +shall have no more strong Executives, until some national emergency +unites the people temporarily for the accomplishment of some single +purpose. The Executive is the greatest common divisor of a diverse +society. Congress, equally, is weak so long as it remains a Congress +based upon the present theory of party government, for the party has to +be stretched out too thin, has to represent too many different views to +have character and purpose. Steadily parties are being driven more and +more to pure negation. Wilson was elected the first time on the negative +issue, "No more Roosevelt and his radicalism," and the second time on +the negative issue, "He kept us out of war," and Harding upon the +negative issue, "No more Wilson."</p> + +<p>If the two existing parties cannot be positive and constructive, "Why +not scrap them both?" asks Mr. Samuel G. Blythe. Why not, indeed?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +except for the fact that you can find no principle upon which to found a +third party. If there were a positive principle upon which a majority of +the voters would agree the existing parties would grab for it. They are +colorless and negative not by choice but by necessity.</p> + +<p>Let us look at the situation. The public is disgusted with the existing +parties and becoming indifferent to the possibilities of the suffrage +and of popular government, an unhealthy sign. A new party is out of the +question, for to succeed any new party must be broad enough to cover all +sorts and conditions of men, divergent groups and interests. It must at +once have the defects of the old parties.</p> + +<p>So long as parties "must be careful," to quote Mr. Harding, executives +must "be careful" and Congress organized on the party basis "must be +careful." We gravitate toward negation.</p> + +<p>We face in government perhaps what it is said we face in industry and in +war, organization on such a scale that men are no longer masters of it. +Under such circumstances there is nothing to do but to break it up into +its component parts. That is what the group or bloc system is, a +resolution into component parts.</p> + +<p>It is precisely what will happen in the industrial field if the great +combinations of twenty years ago prove too unwieldy. The vertical trust, +the single industry, organized like the Stinnes group or like the Henry +Ford industry from the raw material<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> to the finished product but seeking +no monopoly, promises to take the place of the horizontal trust of +monopolistic tendency. The bloc is a vertical organization appearing in +the field of politics, which hitherto has been dominated by the +horizontal organization of the parties.</p> + +<p>A vertical organization, like everything vertical in this world, tends +to rest upon the solid earth. It has its base in reality. The bloc +introduces reality into public life. It will be represented by men who +are not ashamed to stand frankly for the selfish interests of their +group.</p> + +<p>When we banished selfish interests from the government a few years ago +we banished all interests—and even all interest, too—leaving very +little but hypocrisy and timidity. The representatives of a group will +not have to be all things to all men as our party men are, but only one +thing to one kind of men.</p> + +<p>If we cannot get our present parties to stand for anything, if for the +same reason we cannot form a new party to stand for anything, we can at +least introduce principles into politics through the force of group +support. Blocs will be positive, not merely negative as the parties have +become. They do not have to please everybody. They can and must be +constructive.</p> + +<p>The clash of ideas which we miss between parties may take place between +blocs. I am assuming, as everyone in Washington does, that the farm +bloc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> is only a forerunner of other similar political efforts, for every +economic interest which is organized among the voters may extend itself +vertically into Congress.</p> + +<p>There will be a gain in decentralization, there will be a gain in +honesty, there will be a gain in constructive political effort through +the direct representation of the real interests of society in Congress.</p> + +<p>Nor does there appear any danger of the break up into utterly unrelated +minorities such as has taken place, let us say, in France and Germany. +We have what most European countries has not, an elected Executive who +plays an important part in legislation, the President with his veto +power. So long as the presidential office retains this function, and it +is always likely to retain it, there must be national parties within +which the minorities, interests, or occupational groups, must coöperate.</p> + +<p>Groups will not be able in this country as in Europe to elect members of +the national legislature independently, then form a combination and pick +their own Executive. They are under compulsion to elect the Executive at +large by the votes of the whole people; they must hold together enough +for that purpose.</p> + +<p>The centrifugal tendency of minorities in the American system is thus +effectively restrained. Groups must work within the parties, as the +agricultural bloc has done and as the proposed liberal workers bloc +promises to do. A handful of seats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> in Congress alone is not worth +fighting for: that is why all third party movements have failed. A +handful of seats in a European parliament is worth having; it may +dictate the choice of the Executive; that is why parties are numerous +abroad. In other words "bloc" is a useful name as indicating a radical +departure in our political system but it contains no threat for this +country of the political disintegration prevailing in Europe.</p> + +<p>The names Republican and Democrat are likely to last as convenient +designations of the accord reached for national purposes between the +vertical organizations which represent economic or other group interests +of the people. Unity is thus preserved as well as diversity, which is +what upon geographical lines, the Father of the Constitution sought.</p> + +<p>You have only to regard the agricultural bloc to perceive the truth of +this analysis. Primarily its members are Republicans or Democrats and +only secondarily representatives of agriculture. They have rejected +leadership of a separatist tendency, choosing the moderate guidance of +Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Capper rather than the more individualistic +generalship of Mr. Borah or Mr. La Follette. Some day their successors +may be primarily representatives of agriculture and only secondarily +Republicans or Democrats, but in one of the two big parties they must +retain their standing, or share the fate of third parties, a fate +made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> inevitable by the necessity electing of a chief executive at +large.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus14" id="illus14"></a> +<img src="images/illus14.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>SENATOR ARTHUR I CAPPER OF KANSAS</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>When the farmer votes for legislators who will represent primarily the +farm interest, and the laborer for legislators who will represent +primarily the labor interest and the business man for legislators who +will represent the business interests self-government will assume a new +importance, even though all of these interests will have to be +subordinated to the general interest for the sake of coöperation with a +party in the choice of an Executive.</p> + +<p>I have compared the group organization to the vertical trust of the +industrial world. The resemblance is striking. Take the instance of Herr +Stinness, the most interesting figure in manufacturing today. Originally +he was a coal mine owner. Instead of spreading laterally to monopolize +coal he builds upward from his raw material to finished products. He +adds iron to his holdings and manufactures electrical supplies and +electricity. He owns his own ships for the carrying of his products. He +would buy railroads from the German government for the transporting of +them. He owns newspapers for political action. And the whole +organization culminates with himself in the Reichstag, and in +international relations where he is almost as significant a figure as +the German government itself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Henry Ford, a lesser person, started at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> other end and organized +downward to the raw material. He now owns his own mines, his railroads +for shipping, his raw material and products, his steel foundries, the +factories which turn out his finished products, his weekly newspaper, +and he is himself a political figure of no one yet knows how much +importance.</p> + +<p>The farmers are organized for social purposes, for the distribution of +information among themselves, for coöperation in buying and selling, for +maintaining a lobby at Washington and finally for political action. +Political action crowns an organization which serves all the purposes +for which union is required.</p> + +<p>Practically every other interest is organized to the point of +maintaining a lobby at Washington. Only the farmers have developed +organization in Congress. Only they have adapted their organization to +all their needs, social and political. Only they have the perfect +vertical trust running straight up from the weekly entertainment in the +union or bureau to the Senate in Washington, where their Senators do the +bidding of their agent, Mr. Gray Silver.</p> + +<p>Indispensable to effective special interest representation seems to be +an organization for other than political purposes which brings the +voters of a class or occupation together. Labor has such an organization +in its unions. Business has it perhaps in its Chambers of Commerce and +Boards of Trade.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> Either of them has the means at its disposal for +imitating the farmers and developing a bloc in the national legislature.</p> + +<p>It is natural that the farm interest should be the first to push its way +beyond the lobby or propaganda stage at Washington to that of organized +representation on the floor of Congress. Agriculture is the single +interest or the immensely predominating interest in many States. A +Senator or Representative from such a state may safely consider himself +a representative of agriculture. But in a more fully developed community +there is a diversity of interests. Where there is capital there is also +labor. Moreover most of the industrial States have also their +agricultural interest. It is not safe for an Eastern Senator or +Representative, as the situation now stands, to identify himself with +any minority. He must at least pretend to "represent the whole people."</p> + +<p>If the vertical movement in politics proceeds, as it almost inevitably +must, it will manifest itself effectively first in the lower house. +Congress districts are small units. In an industrial State one district +may be prevailingly agricultural, another prevailingly labor, another +prevailingly commercial. Groups operating within a party will tend to +parcel out the districts among themselves holding their support of each +other's candidates, as the Liberal and Labor parties have often done in +England.</p> + +<p>The Senate will be less responsive. States are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> large units and, except +in farming regions, are not prevailingly of one interest. But a division +may be effected like that which now gives one Senator to the eastern and +another to the western, or one to the urban and another to the rural +part of the State. One Senator may go to business and another to +agriculture or to labor as the case may be.</p> + +<p>What I have just written is by way of illustration. I have spoken of +agricultural, labor and business blocs not because these are the only +divisions of society that may be organized for political purpose but +because they already have the basic machinery and seem certain to thrust +upwards till they are prominently represented in Congress. Other +minority interests are already showing themselves, as for example the +soldiers of the late war and the inland waterways group. These and +others like them, some permanent and some temporary, will cut across the +main subdivisions, so that men who are divided on one interest will be +united on another and thus furnish a further cement in the body politic +in addition to the necessity of joint action upon the presidency.</p> + +<p>Thus there is less danger of our being ruled by minorities than there is +of minorities having to surrender too much of their purposes for the +sake of unity among themselves and of our thus being in spite of their +organization little better off than we are now, reduced by the sheer +mass that has to be moved to a policy of inaction and negation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<p>In an earlier chapter I analyzed the Senate to show how weak and +will-less it is and how inferior is its personnel, how prostrate it lies +before any powerful minority which has a purpose and the will to carry +it out. I used the Senate as typical of Congress; a desire to save space +and to avoid repetitions kept me from a similar study of the House. In +the same way the parties lie ready for the uses of minorities. They are +will-less. They have no aim and express no unity because when the old +pioneer will to exploit as quickly as possible the national resources +without regard to waste, physical or social, ceased to operate, there +was no unity, except, as I have explained, for temporary purposes, for +social defense under Roosevelt and for national defense under Wilson, +two essentially negative ends.</p> + +<p>Mr. Will H. Hays trying to tell the Republican senate how to vote on the +League covenant, was a less powerful figure than was Mr. Wayne B. +Wheeler ordering it to vote that more than one half of one per cent of +alcohol in a beverage was intoxicating, or Mr. Gray Silver forcing it to +extend credits to farmers, or Colonel Taylor frightening it into voting +for a soldiers' bonus.</p> + +<p>The old party bosses are dead. No machine leader will control as many +delegates in the next national convention as will Mr. Gray Silver. So +far as delegates are now led they are led by Senators and +Representatives. A Senate group chose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Mr. Harding at Chicago. And +Senators and Representatives lie at the mercy of organized minorities.</p> + +<p>The Republican party in 1920 was an agglomeration of minorities, held +together by no better binder than the negation of Wilsonism. There were +the German vote, the Irish vote and the other foreign votes; the farmer +vote, the business vote, the old American vote, the frightened vote, the +herd vote and every conceivable kind of vote. It was in effect a bloc, +in the European sense of that word, a combination of small parties. +These minorities were mostly unorganized in 1920 or imperfectly +organized; their development vertically is now going on. Some of them +will appear as definitely upon the floor of the 1924 convention as the +agricultural group has upon the floor of Congress.</p> + +<p>With the organization of minorities Congress becomes important, for it +is in Congress that the Fathers in their wisdom provided for the +expression of minorities. The Presidency, according to the argument used +before in this book, dwindles to a charming embodiment of that great +American negative—nationwide public opinion. The only ordinarily +available positive—group opinion—finds its play in the Legislature. +There will be determined upon whose shoulders the taxes will be shifted, +who shall have effective rebates in freight rates, and more important +still, who shall use for his group interests the government control of +credit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> Where these questions are being decided there public +attention will concentrate. There will be the stress upon government.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus15" id="illus15"></a> +<img src="images/illus15.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>GREY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>As Congress becomes more important better men will be drawn into it. +There will be a gain to public life in this country from emphasis upon +the parliamentary side of government. As it is now only one prize in +American politics is worth while and that is the Presidency. And there +is no known rule by which men may attain to it. Candidates for it are +chosen at random, from governing a State, from an obscure position in +the Senate, from the army, it may be; in no case does it come as the +certain reward of national service.</p> + +<p>And if, as happened when Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson were made +President, really able men attain the office, they may serve their +country only four years, or eight years at most, and then must retire +from view. In England, for example, similar men are at the head of the +government or leading the opposition for the greater part of a lifetime. +English public life would inevitably look richer than ours even were it +not richer, for when they breed a statesman in England they use him for +years. We discard him after four or eight years. We have not the system +for developing statesmen and when by chance we find one we waste him.</p> + +<p>We put our faith in the jack-of-all-trades and the amateur. We have the +cheerful notion that the "crisis produces the man." This is nothing +more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> than the justice illusion which is lodged in the minds of men, an +idea, religious in its origin, that no time of trial would arrive unless +the man to meet it were benignantly sent along with it, a denial of +human responsibility, an encouragement to the happy-go-lucky notion that +everything always comes out right in the end.</p> + +<p>The world, in going through the greatest crisis in history has +controverted this cheerful belief, for it has not produced "the man" +either here or elsewhere. No one appeared big enough to prevent the war. +No one appeared big enough to shorten the war. No one appeared big +enough to effect a real peace. And no one appeared big enough to guide +this country wisely either in the war or in the making of peace, which +is still going on.</p> + +<p>Only in parliamentary life is there enough permanency and enough +opportunity for the breeding of statesmen. We shall never have them +while the Presidency with its hazards and its wastes is stressed as it +has been in recent years.</p> + +<p>And Congress itself must be reformed before it will encourage and +develop ability. The seniority rule, to which reference has been made +before, must be abolished before talent will have its opportunity in the +legislative branch.</p> + +<p>One of the first things that aggressive minorities would be likely to do +is to reach out for the important committee chairmanships. Already the +seniority rule has been broken in the House, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Martin Madden was +made Chairman of the Appropriations Committee instead of the senior +Republican, an inadequate person from Minnesota.</p> + +<p>And in any case the seniority rule will be severely tested in the +Senate. If Senator McCumber is defeated in North Dakota and Senator +Lodge is defeated or dies, Senator Borah will be in line to be chairman +of the important Foreign Relations Committee. When Senator Cummins, who +is sick, dies or retires and Senator Townsend is defeated, which now +seems likely, Senator LaFollette will be in line to be chairman of the +Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. Both irregulars will then +attain places of vast power unless the seniority rule is abrogated.</p> + +<p>Thus even the machine in the Senate will soon be under pressure to do +away with the absurd method of awarding mere length of service with +power and place.</p> + +<p>Minorities when they determine to take the Senate and the House out of +the enfeebled grasp of incompetent regularity will inevitably find +precedents already established for them.</p> + +<p>A richer public life will come from the breakdown of the safeguards of +mediocrity and from the stressing of the legislative at the expense of +the executive branch of the government. Both these results are likely to +follow from the effective appearance of minority interests in Congress.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE HAPPY ENDING</h3> + + +<p>I have hesitated a long time over writing this last chapter, because of +the natural desire to give to my book a happy ending.</p> + +<p>One may write critically of America and things American, but only if one +ends in a mood of hopeful confidence. There is so much youth, so much +latent power here, that one cannot fail to have faith that the spirit of +man will gain some enlargement from the experiment in living which we +are carrying on in this country.</p> + +<p>And even if that were not true, egotism requires us to believe that we +are ever going forward to better things; for how should "the forces" +have the effrontery to establish so splendid a people as ourselves upon +so rich a continent, while reserving for us nothing but a commonplace +career, that of one of the many peoples who have from time to time +occupied the fairer regions of the earth?</p> + +<p>At least we shall fill a place in history alongside Greece and Rome; we +feel it as the imaginative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> young man feels in himself the stirrings of +a future Shakespeare, Napoleon, or Lincoln.</p> + +<p>The human mind refuses to conceive of so much power coming to ordinary +ends. The justice illusion which men have found so indispensable a +companion on their way through time requires the happy ending. As it is +only right and fair that when the forces send us a crisis they should +send us a man equal to it, so it is only right and fair that when they +put so great a people as ourselves in the world they should prepare for +it a splendid destiny.</p> + +<p>I subscribe heartily to this doctrine. It is as convincing as any I have +ever seen based on the theory which we all cheerfully accept, that man +is not master of his own fate, that he does not need to be, that he had +better not be, that he reaps where he does not sow, reaps, indeed, +abundant crops.</p> + +<p>In the preceding chapter, working toward the happy ending, I have +brought my characters to the verge of felicity: the perfect union +between minorities and majorities, which is the aim of all social order, +is in sight.</p> + +<p>I have based my minorities upon self-interest, thus introducing into our +government the selfish interests banished therefrom twenty years ago. +Their banishment was an achievement of virtue. Their reintroduction is +the accomplishment of good sense. They are the great reality while the +world thinks as it does.</p> + +<p>Since someone somewhere, in a treatise on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> economics probably, penned +the phrase "enlightened self-interest," we have all more or less become +enamored of the idea that wisdom—enlightenment—reposes in the bosom of +selfishness. Justice requires that wisdom should be somewhere. The +reasoning runs like this. The world cannot get on without wisdom. +Justice demands that the world should get on. Therefore there is wisdom +in the world. We know it is not in ourselves or in our neighbors. We +feel, therefore, that it must be in the bosom of perfect selfishness. +And as we cast our eyes about us we think we know where the bosom of +perfect selfishness is, and we feel assured.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, of course, we place it in the heads of all mankind, it being +a thing that no one man has and no few men have, but which is one of +those mysterious properties of the aggregate which does not inhere in +the individuals composing the aggregate; a sort of colloidal element +that comes from shaking men up together, though all are without it +before the mixing and shaking.</p> + +<p>Some would place it, as Mr. Wilson seems to in a famous passage on +minorities, in the breasts of the enlightened few. When the few +disagreed with him, he threw them and their wisdom in jail.</p> + +<p>But wherever it is, it is sure to be found in a system which preserved +the old parties representing the general mind of the country along with +the new vertical political organizations, representing the minorities, +thrusting up like volcanoes upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> placid plane of politics that Mr. +Harding once delighted to survey.</p> + +<p>You have in this combination the spontaneous wisdom of the masses, if +that is where wisdom generates. You have the wisdom of the few, if you +believe in impregnation from above, and you have the wisdom of +selfishness, if you believe as most of us do in the enlightenment of +self-interest. And no one ever located wisdom anywhere else than in +these three places, for the first, as I might easily demonstrate, is the +modern democratic name for the wisdom of God; the second is the wisdom +of men; and the third is the wisdom of the serpent; beside which there +are no other wisdoms.</p> + +<p>This you will admit is moving rapidly and without reserve toward the +happy ending. But I think every writer of a novel has stuck his tongue +in his cheek as he wrote those benedictory words, "And they lived happy +ever after." And I stick my tongue in my cheek as I think of Mr. Gray +Silver, the effective director of the farmers' vertical political trust +sitting in the Senate, leading it perhaps in place of Senator Lodge of +Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>To Mr. Lodge's petulant, imperious gesture—the sharp handclap for the +pages—would succeed Mr. Silver's fixing gesture, that of a country +merchant smoothing out a piece of silk before a customer at a counter. +Mr. Silver as he talks performs one constant motion, a gentle slow +moving of both hands horizontally, palms down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Silver is a lobbyist with the powers of a dictator, or a dictator +with the habits of a lobbyist, whichever way you wish to look at it. A +former farmer, member of the West Virginia legislature, representative +of farm organizations at Washington, he rules the Senate with more power +than Mr. Lodge has or Mr. Harding has, but always with the gentle touch +of a general-storekeeper, spreading the wrinkles out of a yard of satin.</p> + +<p>But even this little lobbyist has a certain definiteness which public +men generally lack. His feet are firmly placed upon reality. He speaks +for a solid body of opinion. He is a positive rather than a negative +force. He represents a fairly united minority which knows what it wants, +and men are strong or weak according as they are or are not spokesmen of +a cause; and the selfish interest of a group easily takes on the pious +aspect of a cause.</p> + +<p>It is always better to deal with principals than with agents. Gray +Silver, Colonel John H. Taylor, the Apollo of the soldiers' bonus lobby, +perfect ladies' man in appearance, who is full of zeal also for a cause, +that of those who did not make money out of the war and who should in +common justice make it all the rest of their lives out of the peace, and +Wayne B. Wheeler, the fanatic leader of the drys, are all more real men +than those who do their bidding in the Senate and the House.</p> + +<p>No, if I put my tongue in my cheek as I write the words "lived happy +ever after," it is because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> I see only a measure of improvement in the +freeing of men from existing political conventions which will come from +the effective emergence of minorities. A richer public life will result +from increased vitality of the legislative branch. But a rich public +life, no; for that requires men. You cannot fashion it out of Lodges, +Watsons, Curtises, Gillettes, Mondells, Hardings, Hugheses, and Hoovers, +or even Gray Silvers, Taylors, or Wheelers.</p> + +<p>And we do not breed men in this country. If the test of a civilization +is an unusually high average of national comfort, achieved in a land of +unparalleled resources, whose exploitation was cut off from interruption +by foreign enemies, then this experiment in living which we have been +conducting in America has been a great success; if it is a further +freeing of the human spirit, such as finds its expression in the rare +individuals who make up the bright spots in all past human history, then +its success is still to be achieved.</p> + +<p>Many blame the dullness and general averageness which afflicts us upon +democracy. There is democracy and there is timidity and stupidity; there +is the appeal to low intelligence; the compulsion to be a best seller +rests upon us all. <i>Post hoc propter hoc.</i></p> + +<p>I am going to blame it upon the mistake Euclid made in his theorem about +two parallel lines. This was an error of Euclid's, modern mathematics +proves, unless you assume space to be infinite.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Having committed +ourselves to Euclid, we committed ourselves to a space that was +infinite. Space being regarded as infinite, man was little, relatively.</p> + +<p>Euclid having made his mistake about the parallels, it followed +inevitably that Mr. Harding should be little.</p> + +<p>I use Mr. Harding only by way of illustration. You may fill any other +name you like of the Washington gallery into that statement of +inevitability and do it no violence. And this very interchangeability of +names suggests that you must go further back than democracy to find the +cause of today's sterility.</p> + +<p>Besides, we have had infinite space, in our minds; but have we ever had +democracy there? De Gourmont writes that no religion ever dies, but it +rather lives on in its successor. Similarly, no form of government ever +dies; it survives in its successor. A nation does not become a democracy +by writing on a bit of paper, "resolved that we are a democracy, with a +government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches +chosen by majority vote."</p> + +<p>Government, however organized, is what exists in the minds of the +people, and in that mind is stored up a dozen superstitions, handed down +from primitive days, gathering force from time to time as new names are +given to them and new "scientific" bases are found for them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>We laugh at the divine right of kings, but we could not accept +self-government without bestowing on it an element of divinity. We have +the divine right of Public Opinion. We can hardly print these words +without the reverence of capital letters. The founders of modern +democracy knew there could be no government without a miraculous +quality. Formerly one mere man by virtue of ruling became something +divine. The miracle grew difficult to swallow. You could regard this one +man and see that he was a fool and had too many mistresses. He was the +least divine-looking thing that could be imagined. Very well then, put +the divine quality into something remote. All men by virtue of ruling +themselves became divine.</p> + +<p>An immense inertia develops between theoretical self-government and the +practical reluctance of humanity to be governed by anything short of the +heavenly hosts. I don't know whether this reluctance springs from racial +modesty, the feeling that man is not good enough to govern himself, or +from racial egotism, the belief that nothing is too good to govern him; +but it is a great reality. The little men at Washington are will-less in +the conflict.</p> + +<p>To overcome this inertia, minorities whose interests cannot wait upon +the slow benevolent processes of determinism or upon the divine +rightness of public opinion, form to prod the constitutional organs of +government into action. Mr. Gray Silver, the silk smoother, and Mr. +Wayne B.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> Wheeler, the Puritan fanatic, are both just as much parts of +the government as is Mr. Harding. So, too, is every one of the hundred +and more lobbies which issue publicity at Washington. We recognize this +plurality of our institutions in our common speech. We refer habitually +to the "invisible government," to "government by business," to "party +government," to "government by public opinion." We have little but +inertia, except as outside pressure is applied to it.</p> + +<p>The little men at Washington live in all this confusion of an +excessively plural government. They are pushed hither and yon by all +these forces, organized and unorganized, mental and physical, real and +imaginary, that inhibit and impel self-government. They lean heavily +upon parties only to find parties bending beneath their weight. They +yield to blocs and lobbies. They watch publicity and put out their own +publicity to counteract it.</p> + +<p>Like the ministers of crowned fools, they gull the present embodiment of +divine right and cringe before it. They are everything but the effective +realization of a democratic will.</p> + +<p>All this sounds as if I were getting far from my happy ending, and you +begin to see me asking the old question, "Is democracy a failure?" But +no, it is too soon to ask it. Wait a thousand years until democracy has +had a real chance. A revolution—no really optimistic prognosis can be +written which does not have the world revolution in it—a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> revolution +will have to take place in men's minds before this is a democracy.</p> + +<p>I would absolve myself from the taboo of this word. Property is a grand +form of clothes. A property revolution, such as the Socialists +recommend, would be little more important in setting men's minds free +for self-government, than would putting women in trousers be in setting +women's minds free for the achievement of sex equality.</p> + +<p>Some German—I think it was Spengler—writing about some "Niedergang," I +think it was of western civilization—all Germans like to write about +Niedergangs—demonstrated that every new civilization starts with a new +theory of the universe, of space and time. That is, it starts with a +real revolution.</p> + +<p>Well, then, here is the true happy ending; Einstein is giving us a new +theory of the universe, knocking the mathematical props from under +infinity, teaching us that man largely fashions the world out of his own +mind.</p> + +<p>Man again tends to become what the old Greek radical called him, "The +measure of all things." Once he is, and it will take a long time for him +to admit that he is, there may be a real chance for democracy and for +the emergence of great individuals, who are after all the best evidence +of civilization.</p> + +<p>You see the happy ending is Einstein and not the farm bloc.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile we have the farm bloc, one sign of vitality amid much +deadness, a reassertion of the principle which the Fathers of the +Constitution held, that there must be room for the play of minorities in +our political system.</p> + +<h3></h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Behind the Mirrors, by Clinton W. 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Gilbert + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Behind the Mirrors + The Psychology of Disintegration at Washington + +Author: Clinton W. Gilbert + +Release Date: February 10, 2012 [EBook #38819] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEHIND THE MIRRORS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + BEHIND THE MIRRORS + + THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISINTEGRATION AT WASHINGTON + + By the Author of "The Mirrors of Washington" + + + Le metier superieur de la critique, ce + n'est pas meme, comme le proclamait + Pierre Bayle, de semer des doubtes; + il faut aller plus loin, il faut detruire. + + DE GOURMONT + + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + The Knickerbocker Press + 1922 + + Copyright, 1922 + by + G. P. Putnam's Sons + + Made in the United States of America + + + + +[Illustration: PRESIDENT WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING] + + + + +FOREWORD + + +"A book like the _Mirrors of Downing Street_ is well enough. It is the +fashion to be interested in English notables. But that sort of thing +won't do here. The American public gets in the newspapers all it wants +about our national politicians. That isn't book material." + +An editor said that just a year ago when we told him of the plan for the +_Mirrors of Washington_. And, frankly, it seemed doubtful whether +readers generally cared enough about our national political +personalities to buy a book exclusively concerned with them. + +But they did. The _Mirrors of Washington_ became an instantaneous +success. It commanded almost unprecedented attention. It was heartily +damned and vociferously welcomed. By the averagely curious citizen, +eager for insight behind the gilded curtains of press-agentry and +partisanship, it was hailed as a shaft of common-sense sunlight thrown +into a clay-footed wilderness of political pap. And close to one hundred +thousand copies were absorbed by a public evidently genuinely interested +in an uncensored analysis of the people who are running us, or ruining +us, as individual viewpoint may determine. + +The _Mirrors of Washington_ was by way of being a pioneer, at least for +America. Overseas, it is habitual enough to exhibit beneath the literary +microscope the politically great and near-great, and even to dissect +them--often enough without anaesthesia. To our mind, such critical +examination is healthily desirable. Here in America, we are +case-hardened to the newspapers, whose appraisal of political personages +is, after all, pretty well confined to the periods of pre-election +campaigning. And we are precious little influenced by this sort of +thing; the pro papers are so pro, and the anti papers so anti, that few +try to determine how much to believe and how much to dismiss as routine +partisan prevarication. + +But a book! Political criticism, and personality analyses, frozen into +the so-permanently-appearing dignity of a printed volume--that is +something else again! Even a politician who dismisses with a smile or a +shrug recurrent discompliments in the news columns or the anonymous +editorial pages of the press, is tempted to burst into angry protest +when far less bitter, far more balanced criticism of himself is voiced +in a book. A phenomenon, that, doubtless revisable as time goes on and +the reflections of more book-bound Mirrors brighten the eyes of those +who read and jangle the nerves of those who run--for office. + +_Behind the Mirrors_ is another such book. It delves into the +fundamentals at Washington. It is concerned with political tendencies as +well as political personalities. It presents what impresses us as a +genuinely useful and brilliant picture of present-day governmental +psychology and functioning. It is a cross section of things as they are. + +The picture behind the mirrors is not as pretty as it might be. Probably +the way to make it prettier is to let ample light in upon it so that the +blemishes, discerned, may be rectified; and to impress those responsible +for its rehabilitation with the necessity of taking advantage of the +opportunities that are theirs. + +When President Eliot of Harvard presented to a certain Senator an +honorary degree, he described with inimitable charm and considerable +detail that Senator's literary achievements; and then he mentioned his +political activities, ending with substantially these words: "A man with +great opportunities for public service still inviting him." + +The invitation yet holds good. Acceptances are still in order. + + G. P. P. + + NEW YORK, + June, 1922. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--PRESIDENT HARDING AND THE CLOCK. GOD'S TIME AS IT WAS + IN THE AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS 3 + + II.--GOD'S TIME AS IT IS; AN INGERSOLL THAT REQUIRES MUCH + WINDING 21 + + III.--GOLDEN WORDS TURN TO BRASS 36 + + IV.--THE SUPER-PRESIDENT GOES DOWN IN THE GENERAL SMAS 61 + + V.--LOOKING FOR ULTIMATE WISDOM--IN THE BOSOM OF THERESE 80 + + VI.--SHALL WE FIND OUR SALVATION SITTING, LIKE MR. MELLON, + ON A PILE OF DOLLARS 101 + + VII.--THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE + BOTTLE 119 + + VIII.--THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR OF MUCH LITTLENESS 142 + + IX.--CONGRESS AT LAST WITH SOMETHING TO DO HAS NO ONE TO + DO IT 156 + + X.--INTERLUDE. INTRODUCING A FEW MEMBERS OF THE UPPER + HOUSE BOOBOISIE AND SOME OTHERS 173 + + XI.--A PEAK OF REALITY THRUSTS UP ON THE LEVEL PLAIN OF + SHAMS 204 + + XII.--THE HAPPY ENDING 226 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + + PAGE + +PRESIDENT WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING _FRONTISPIECE_ + +UNCLE SAM'S CONFERENCE 26 + +REPRESENTATIVE FRANK W. MONDELL OF WYOMING 44 + +LORD RIDDELL 96 + +ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 112 + +ARTHUR BALFOUR 130 + +ATTORNEY-GENERAL H. M. DAUGHERTY 138 + +SENATOR JAMES E. WATSON OF INDIANA 160 + +REPRESENTATIVE FREDERICK H. GILLETT OF MASSACHUSETTS 166 + +SENATOR JOSEPH S. FRELINGHUYSEN OF NEW JERSEY 180 + +SENATOR HARRY S. NEW OF INDIANA 188 + +SENATOR JAMES W. WADSWORTH OF NEW YORK 190 + +SENATOR WILLIAM M. CALDER OF NEW YORK 192 + +SENATOR ARTHUR I. CAPPER OF KANSAS 216 + +GRAY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC 222 + + + + +BEHIND THE MIRRORS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PRESIDENT HARDING AND THE CLOCK. GOD'S TIME AS IT WAS IN THE AMERICAN +POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS + + +President Harding had recently to decide the momentous question whether +we should have daylight saving in Washington. He decided it in a +perfectly characteristic way, perfectly characteristic of himself and of +our present political division and unsureness. He ruled that the city +should go to work and quit work an hour earlier, but that it should not +turn back the hands of the clock, should not lay an impious finger upon +God's Time. + +That this straddle is typical of our President needs no argument--he +"has to be so careful," as he once pathetically said--but that it is +symptomatic of the present American political consciousness perhaps +needs elucidation. + +The clock is one of the problems left to us by the Great War, one of +the innumerable problems thus left to us; it involves our whole attitude +toward men and things. + +It represents, rather literally, Mechanism. In the war we adopted +perforce the creed that man was sufficiently master of his own destiny +to adapt Mechanism to his own ends; he could lay a presumptuous hand +upon God's Time. But in peace shall he go on thus boldly? Or shall he +revert to the good old days, the days of McKinley, when the clock was +sacred? Think of all the happiness, all the prosperity, that was ours, +all the duty done and all the destiny abundantly realized, before man +thought to lay a hand upon the clock! + +The question what the limits to human government are is involved. What +may man attempt for himself and what should he leave to the great +Mechanism which has, upon the whole, run the world so well, to the Sun +in its courses, to progress, to inevitability? After all the clock was +in the beginning, is now and ever shall be--unless we meddle with +it--and before its cheerful face America was built from a wilderness +into a vast nation, creating wealth, so as to be the third historic +wonder of the ages--the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was +Rome, the dollars that are America. + +And not only are we divided as to the limits of government, but where +shall Mr. Harding look for authority to guide him with respect to +clocks? To his party? This is a party government, you remember. But his +party speaks with no clear voice about clocks or about anything else. To +business? Business has only one rule--more clocks in government and less +government in clocks. But business bows to the public. To public opinion +then? The public is divided about clocks; we tend to grow class +conscious about clocks. And clamorously amid all these authorities is +heard the voice of the Farm Bloc exclaiming: "Don't touch God's Time." + +So it is decided that Washington may save daylight and save the clock +too, a double saving, a most happy compromise. If all questions touching +Mechanism could only be solved in the direction of such splendid +economies! + +I listened a year ago to a most unusual Fourth of July oration. The +speaker, like most of us in this period of breakup following the Great +War, was rather bewildered. He had, moreover, his private reasons for +feeling that life was not easily construed. An illness, perhaps mortal, +afflicted him. Existence had been unclouded until this last cloud came; +why was it to end suddenly and without reason? He had gone through the +Great War a follower of Mr. Wilson's, to see the world scoffing at the +passionate faith it had professed a few months before and sneering at +the leaders it had then exalted. He had echoing in his mind the fine war +phrases, "Brotherhood of Man," "War to End War," "We must be just even +to those to whom we do not wish to be just." Then some monstrous hand +had turned the page and there was Harding, just as in his own life all +success at the bar and in politics, and the joy of being lord of a vast +country estate that had been patented in his family since colonial +times, had suddenly come to an end; the page had turned. + +So this is what he said, in a voice that rose not much above a whisper, +"I have told them where to dig a hole and put me, out here on my +pleasant place. I don't know what it means. I don't believe it has any +meaning. The only thing to do is to laugh. You have trouble laughing? +Look about you and you will find plenty to laugh at. Look at your +President and laugh. Look at your Supreme Court and laugh. Not one of +them knows whether he is coming or going. Everything for the moment has +lost its meaning for everyone. If you can't laugh at anything else, just +think how many angels there are who are blank blanks and how many blank +blanks there are who are angels ... and laugh." + +The Comic Spirit looking down from some cool distance sees something +like what this lawyer saw. It sees President Harding and the Ku Klux +Klan. The connection between President Harding and the Ku Klux Klan? The +Comic Spirit, perceiving everything, perceives that too. For it Mr. +Harding is but the pious manifestation of a sentiment of which the Ku +Klux Klan is the unconscious and serviceable parody, that instinctive +rush of a people with the world breaking up about it, to seek safety in +the past. Men always shrink thus backward when facing an uncertain +future, just as in moments of great peril they become children again, +call "Mother!" and revert to early practices at her knee. It is one of +the most intelligent things the human race ever does. It is looking +before you leap: the race has no choice but to leap; it draws back to +solid ground in the past for a better take-off into the future. Mr. +Harding represents solid ground, McKinley and the blessed nineties, the +days before men raised a presumptuous hand against the clock. + +If utterly in earnest and determined to revive that happy period, you +clothe yourself in that garment which evokes the assured past, the +blessed nineties, the long white night shirt; the long white night shirt +supplemented by the black mask and the tar brush shall surely save you. + +The Comic Spirit looking about largely, like our Fourth of July orator, +sees in Mr. Harding a wise shrinking into the safety of the past and in +Mr. William H. Taft, our new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at once +a regard for the past and an eye for the future. Can anyone tell whether +Mr. Justice Taft is coming or going, as this Fourth of July speaker +asked? He comes and he goes, and like the wind man knows not whence he +cometh or whither he goeth. He is forward looking--when he is not +backward looking. Like Zekle, + + "He stands a while on one foot fust, + Then stands a while on t'other; + And on which one he feels the wust, + He can not tell you nuther." + +Glance at his public career. He stood upon his future foot with +Roosevelt, the chosen executor of "My Policies." A little later he +stands upon his past foot, alongside of Aldrich and Cannon, doing the +works of perdition and bringing on the battle of Armageddon. Again you +find him standing on his future foot beside Mr. Frank P. Walsh in the +War Labor Board, ranging himself with Mr. Walsh in practically all the +close decisions. Again you see him when all the fine forward looking of +the war was over, scurrying from the Russian revolution as fast as +President Wilson or all the rest of us. And once more on his future foot +with Mr. Wilson for the League of Nations and on his past foot with +President Harding against the League of Nations. + +Let us be Freudian and say that the unconscious political self of the +whole nation is responsible for the selection of Mr. Harding and Mr. +Taft. As we shrink back into the past we are aware that it is for the +take-off into the future, and so we have Mr. Taft. We both eat our cake +and have it in the new Chief Justice. + +The United States, like Zekle, is "standing a while on one foot fust, +then standing a while on t'other," moving forward or backward. But not +for long, too large and secure to be permanently cautious, with too much +well-being to be permanently bold, thinking, but with a certain +restraining contempt for thought, instinctive rather than intellectual. +Vast, eupeptic, assimilative, generous, adaptable, the Chief Justice +typifies the American people in its more permanent characteristics. + +Mr. Harding as President, Mr. Taft as Chief Justice, the agricultural +bloc, the enfeebled Congress, the one million or so Democratic majority +which becomes in four years a seven-million Republican majority, are +only manifestations. The reality is the man, many millions strong, whose +mental state produces the symptoms at Washington. It will be profitable +to examine the content of his mind as it was in those days before +momentous decisions had to be made about daylight saving, and as it is +today when he hesitates between saving daylight and saving the clock, +and perhaps decides to save both. + +I can not better describe his political consciousness as it was than by +saying that it contained three governments--the government of the clock, +the government of the clock-winders, and the government of those who +lived by the clock as religiously minded by the clock-winders. It was an +orderly age, beautifully sure of itself, and the area of these three +governments was nicely delimited. There was only a small place for the +third of these governments. + +For the purposes of more common understanding I shall sometimes refer to +the government of the clock as the government of Progress, and the +government of the clock-winders as the government of business, and to +the third government as the government at Washington. + +Before the war the American was sure that with each tick of the clock +the world grew richer and better, especially richer. Progress went +inevitably on and on. It never turned backward or rested. Its mechanical +process relieved man of many responsibilities. No one would think of +touching the mechanism; turning back the hands of the clock might rob us +of some boon that was intended in the beginning whose moment of arrival +might be lost by interfering with God's Time. + +Born on a continent which only a few years before was a wilderness but +which now was the richest and one of the finest civilizations on the +earth, the American could not fail to believe in progress. The visible +evidences of it were on every hand. His father had been a poor immigrant +seeking the mere chance to live; he was a farmer possessed of many +acres, a business man who had an increasing income already in five +figures, a rising young attorney, or physician. Even from generation to +generation everything got better. + +The past had had its unhappy moments. The American looked back at the +past mainly to measure how far he had come and to guess how far moving +forward at a geometrical ratio of increased speed he would go in the not +distant future. History flattered him. + +Before his eyes went on the steady conquest over Nature, or perhaps it +is better to say, the steady surrender of Nature. Always there were new +discoveries of science. Always there were new inventions. Forces which a +little while ago were beyond control, whose existence even was +unsuspected, were harnessed to everyday uses. He saw progress in +statistics. Things which were reckoned in millions began to be reckoned +in hundreds of millions, began to be reckoned in billions. We loved to +read the long figures where, in the pleasing extension of ciphers, +wealth grew, debts grew--even debts were a source of pride before they +called for income taxes to meet the annual payments upon them. + +Progress would never stop. Tomorrow we should set the sun's rays to some +more practical use than making the earth green and pleasant to look at +and its fruits good to eat. We should employ them like the waters of +Niagara Falls, to turn the wheels of machinery by day and to light soap +and automobile signs on Broadway by night. We should split atoms apart +and release the mighty forces that had held them together since the +beginning, for the production of commodities in greater and greater +quantities at less and less cost. + +"We should," I say, but I do our inmost thought a vast injustice. +Rather, Progress would, scientists and inventors being only the +instruments of a Fate which went steadily forward to the accomplishment +of its beneficent purposes. At the right moment, at the appointed hour, +the man would appear. Progress kept the prompter's book and gave him the +cue. + +To a people with all these evidences of an irresistible forward movement +in Nature before its eyes, came a prophet who gave it its law, the law +of evolution, the law by which once the monocellular organism had +acquired the mysterious gift of life out of combination and +recombination inevitably came man. It was all the unfolding of the +inevitable, the unrolling of time; the working out of a law. + +Now, law has a quite extraordinary effect upon men's minds. The more Law +there is the less Man there is. The more man spells Law with a capital +letter the more he spells himself with a small letter. Man was no longer +the special creation of God. God, instead of making Adam and Eve his +wife, fashioned a grain of star dust and gave it a grain of star dust to +wife, leaving the rest to Progress. Man who had been a little lower than +the angels became, by an immense act of faith, a little higher than the +earthworm. The old doctrine of the Fall of Man took on a reverse twist. +Man had not fallen but he had risen from such debased beginnings that he +had not got far. He was in about the same place where he would have been +if he had fallen. + +It was easy to turn upside down our belief in the Fall of Man. We always +knew there was something wrong with him, but we did not know what it was +until evolution explained his unregenerate character so satisfactorily. +Still the thought that Man did not move forward as fast as things, was +less the special ward of Progress than automobiles, elevators and +bathtubs, was vaguely disturbing. + +The Greeks had left us records which showed that the human mind was as +good three thousand years ago as it is today, or better. We shut our +eyes to this bit of evidence by abandoning the study of the classics and +excluding all allusion to them in the oratory of our Congress. And +Mr. Wells in his History has since justified us by proving that +the Greeks were after all only the common run of small-town +folk--over-press-agented, perhaps, by some fellows in the Middle Ages +who had got tired of the Church and who therefore pretended that there +was something bigger and better in the world than it was. + +So we pinned our hopes on the Martians and spent our time frantically +signalling to the nearby planet, asking whether, when the earth grew as +cold as King David when his physicians "prescribed by way of poultice a +young belle," and responded only weakly to the caress of the Sun, when +its oceans dried up and only a trickle of water came down through its +valleys from the melting ice at its poles, we should not, like the +fancied inhabitants of the nearest celestial body, have evolved at last +into super-beings. We wanted some evidence from our neighbors that, in +spite of the Greeks, by merely watching the clock we should arrive at a +higher estate. + +The point I am trying to make is that we have been conducting the most +interesting of Time's experiments in the government of men at a period +when Man has been at a greater discount than usual in his own mind, when +self-government faced too much competition from government by the clock. + +When I speak of government by the clock, I should, perhaps, use capital +letters to indicate that I have in mind that timepiece on which is +recorded God's Time; whose ticking is the forward march of progress. +Clocks as they touch our lives require human intervention. The winders +of these clocks perform something that may be described as an office. + +You recall the place the clock filled in our households a generation +ago. Father wound it once a week, at a stated time, as regularly as he +went to church. The winding of it was a function. No other hand but +father's touched the key; if one had, the whole institution of family +life would have been imperiled. Father is a symbol for the government of +the clock-winders, those sacred persons who translated Progress into +terms of common utility. + +When we descended from the regions of theocratic power to those of human +institutions, we found ourselves in America to be workers in one vast +countrywide workshop. The workshop touches us more directly and more +importantly than does the nation. Out of the workshop comes our bread +and butter. When the workshop closes down we suffer and form on line at +the soup kitchens. + +Three meals a day concern us more than do post-offices and federal +buildings, of however white marble or however noble facades. What we +have to eat and to wear, what we may put in the bank, what real freedom +we enjoy, our position in the eyes of men, our happiness and +unhappiness, depend on our relations to the national workshop, not on +our relations to the national government. + +We conceived of it vaguely as a thing which produced prosperity, not +prosperity in its larger and more permanent aspects--that was ours +through the beneficence of Progress and the immortal luck of our +country--but prosperity in its more immediate details. + +A lot of confused thinking in which survived political ideas as old as +the race, converted into modern forms, entered into our conception of +it. It was a thing of gods and demigods, with legends of golden fleeces +and of Hercules holding up the skies. It was feudal in its privileges +and immunities. It enjoyed the divine right of kings. Yet it operated +under laws not made by man. + +When it failed to effect prosperity, it was because of a certain law +that at the end of ever so many years of fatness it must produce a +famine. At such times men, demigods, stepped out of banks with sacks of +gold on their shoulders and mitigated the rigors of its failure. + +And these splendid personages might set going again that which law +stopped. We bowed patiently and unquestioningly to its periodic +eccentricity as part of the Fate that fell upon the original sinner, and +watched hopefully the powerful men who might in their pleasure or their +wisdom end our sufferings. + +We were taught to regard it as a thing distinct from political +authority, so that the less governors and lawmakers interfered with it +the better for the general welfare. Back in our past is a thorough +contempt for human intelligence which relates somehow to the religious +precept against questioning the wisdom of God. Whatever ordinary men did +in the field of economics was sure to be wrong and to check the flow of +goods upon which the well-being of society depended. We were all, except +the familiars of the great forces, impotent pieces of the game economic +law played upon this checker-board of nights and days. + +I have said that this government of the national workshop in which we +were all laborers or foremen or superintendents or masters sometimes +seemed to our consciousness a government of laws and sometimes a +government of men. In any primitive faith priests played a large part, +and probably the primitive worshippers before them much of the time did +not think beyond the priests, while sometimes they did--when it was +convenient for the priests that they should. + +When famines or plagues came it was because the gods were angry. When +they are averted it is the priests who have averted them. When economic +panics came it was because we had sinned against economic law; when they +were averted it was because men had averted them, men who lived on +intimate terms with economic law and understood its mysterious ways, and +enjoyed its favor, as their great possessions testified. + +Naturally, we are immensely more directly and more constantly concerned +with this government than with the government at Washington. Besides, we +were mostly business men, or hoped to be. It was our government more +truly than was the government at Washington. + +Only a limited area in the political consciousness was left for +self-government. You descended from the heights to the broad flat plain +of man's contempt for man. It was there, rooted firmly in the +constitution, that the government at Washington reared its head. +Self-government is a new thing; no myth has gathered about it. It was +established among men who believed in the doctrine of the original sin, +and it had been carried by their successors, who had abandoned the +sinner Adam as the progenitor of their kind for the sinless but +inglorious earthworm. The inferiority complex which is the race's most +persistent heritage from the past was written all over it. + +I suppose it was Adam Smith who made self-government possible by +discovering that the things really essential to our welfare would take +care of themselves if we only let them alone and that the more we let +them alone the better they would take care of themselves, under eternal +and immutable laws. Ah, the happy thought occurred, if the really +essential things are thus beneficially regulated why shouldn't we have +the fun of managing the non-essentials ourselves? + +Progress ruled the world kindly and well. It might be trusted to see +that all went for the best. The government of business functioned +effectively for the general weal. The future was in the hands of a force +that made the world richer and better. The present, in all that +concerned man most vitally with regards food and shelter, was directed +by enlightened self-interest represented by men who personified success. + +It was impossible not to be optimistic when existence was so well +ordered. There was no sorry scheme of things to be seized entire. Life +was a sort of tropics without tropical discomforts. The tropics do not +produce men. They produce things. + +The Mechanism worked, as it seemed to us, in those happy days. We were +satisfied with the clock and the clock-winders. We were not divided in +our minds as to whether we should turn back its hands. The less men +meddled the better. There was little work for human government to do. +There was no call for men. + +The picture in our heads, to use Mr. Graham Wallas's phrase, was of a +world well ruled by a will from the beginning, whose purpose was +increase; of some superior men having semi-sacred relations with the +will who acted as intermediaries between the will and the rest of us; +and of the rest of us as being rewarded by the will, through its +intermediaries, according to our timidity and submissiveness. + +It was, the world, over the great age of the racial inferiority complex, +for which Science had furnished a new and convincing basis. I might +maintain that the Great War was modern society's effort to compensate +for the evolution complex; man wanted to show what he could do, in spite +of his slimy origin. Anyway, it broke the picture in our heads. Being +economical, like Mr. Harding, we are trying both to save the pieces of +the picture and put them together again, and to form, out of them +unfortunately, a new picture; which accounts for our confusion. + +But the picture in our heads before the war, such as it was, is the +reason for our present inadequacy. You could not form much of a +self-government or develop men for one, with that complex in your soul. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +GOD'S TIME AS IT IS; AN INGERSOLL THAT REQUIRES MUCH WINDING + + +How many of us believe in Progress with the unquestioning faith we had +before that day in July, 1914, when Austria's declaration of war upon +Serbia started the ruin of all that centuries had built up in Europe? +Most of us have not stopped to analyze what has happened since to our +belief that the world ever moved by an irresistible primal impulse +forward to more and better things, that the song which the morning stars +sang together was "It shall be multiplied unto you," that increment is +inevitable and blessed. But how many of us really believe that in the +unqualified way we once did? + +The world had many pleasant illusions about Progress before the great +catastrophe of 1914 came to shatter them. And nowhere were these +illusions more cheerfully accepted than in this country of ours, where a +wilderness had become a great civilization in the space of a century and +where the evidences of rapid, continuous advancement were naturally +strong. + +The first pleasant illusion was that modern progress had made war +impossible, at least war between the great nations of the earth, which, +profiting by the examples we had set them, enjoyed more or less free +governments, where production mounted from year to year, where wealth +was ever increasing. Destiny plainly meant more and more iron dug from +the ground and turned into steel machinery, larger, more powerful +automobiles, taller and taller buildings, swifter and swifter elevators, +more and more capacious freight cars, and destiny would not tolerate +stopping all this for the insanity of destruction. + +Moreover--how good were the ways of Progress--the ever increasing +mastery over the forces of nature which had been fate's latest and best +gift to humanity, approaching a sort of millennium of machinery, while +creating vaster engines of industry had brought into being more and +monstrous weapons of warfare. + +Life with benignant irony was making man peaceful in spite of himself. +His bigger and bigger cannon, his more and more lethal explosives were +destroying his capacity for destruction. War was being hoist by its own +petard. The bigger the armies, the more annihilating the shells piled up +in the arsenals, the less the chance of their ever being used. + +Progress, infinitely good toward man, had found a way out of war, the +plague that had blighted the earth since the beginning. What religion +could not do, the steel foundries and the chemical laboratories had +done. They had made war too deadly to be endured. In effect they had +abolished it. Peace was a by-product of the Bessemer oven and the dye +vat. Man's conquest of himself was an unconsidered incident of his +conquest of nature. + +Then there were the costs of war. Progress had done something more than +make fighting intolerably destructive of men and cities; it had made it +intolerably destructive of money. Even if we would go to war, we could +not since no nation could face the vast expenditures. + +Two little wars of brief duration, the Boer War and the Balkan War, had +left great debts to be paid and had brought in their train financial +disturbances affecting the entire world. A European war would destroy +immensely more capital and involve vastly greater burdens. No nation +with such a load on its shoulders could meet the competition of its +peace keeping rivals for the world's trade. No government in its senses +would provoke such consequences, and governments were, of course, always +in their senses. + +You did not have to accept this as an act of faith; you could prove it. +Shells, thanks to Progress, cost so many hundreds of dollars each. +Cannon to fire them cost so many thousands of dollars each and could +only be used a very few times. Armies such as the nations of Europe +trained, cost so much a day to feed and to move. The demonstration was +perfect. Progress had rendered war virtually impossible. + +If in spite of all a war between great modern nations did start, it +could last only a few weeks. No people could stand the strain. +Bankruptcy lay at the end of a short campaign. A month would disclose +the folly of it, and bring the contestants to their senses; if it did +not, exhaustion would. Credit would quickly disappear. Nations could not +borrow on the scale necessary to prolong the struggle. + +The wisest said all these things as governments began to issue orders of +mobilization in 1914. Emperors were merely shaking their shining armor +at each other. There would be no war. It was impossible. The world had +progressed too far. Anachronistic monarchies might not know it, but it +had. Their armies belonged as much to the past as their little titles, +as all the middle-age humbug of royalty, their high-wheeled coaches, +their out-riders in their bright uniform, their debilitating habit of +marrying cousins, their absurdities about their own divine rights. They +had armies, as they wore upturned mustachios, to make themselves look +imposing. They were as unreal as the pictured kings in children's story +books or on a deck of cards. Forces mightier than they had settled +forever the question of war. + +And when hostilities actually began an incredulous America knew they +would be over in three months. Anybody with a piece of paper and a +pencil could prove that they could not last. It took all of Kitchener's +prestige to persuade society that the fighting would keep on through the +winter, and his prediction that it would continue three years was +received as the error of a reporter or the opinion of a professional +soldier who overlooked the economic impossibility of a long war. + +It is worth while recalling these cheerful illusions to estimate what +has happened to the idea of Progress in seven swiftly changing years. We +did not give up readily the illusion that the world had been vastly and +permanently changed for the better. As it was proved that there could be +a war and a long one and as the evidence multiplied that this war was +the most devastating in all history, we merely changed our idea of +Progress, which became in our minds a force that sometimes produced evil +in order that good might result. + +The Great War itself was assimilated to our idea of a beneficent fate. +Whom Progress loveth it chasteneth. Instead of rendering war impossible +by making it destructive and costly, it visited the earth with the +greatest war of all time in order to make war impossible. This was the +war to end all war. The ways of progress were past finding out but they +were good. + +Paper demonstrations had gone wrong. Governments did not go bankrupt +after a few months but could still borrow at the end of five years. +Humanity did not sicken and turn away from the destruction, but the +greater the carnage the more eager were the nations still at peace to +have a hand in it. Still it could never happen again. It was a lesson +sent of fate. Men must co-operate with progress and not leave to that +force the sole responsibility for a permanently peaceful future. They +had sinned against the light in allowing such unprogressive things, as +autocracies upon the earth. They must remove the abominations of the +Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns. Once they had set up that brightest +flower of Progress, modern democracy, in place of the ancient empires, +there would be no more wars. Democracy had one great merit. It was +rather stupid and lacking in foresight. It did not prepare for war and +being forever unready would not fight. + +The war had been sent by Progress to call man's attention to their +duties regarding certain anachronisms with which Progress was otherwise +unable to deal. + +[Illustration: UNCLE SAM'S CONFERENCE] + +You will observe that the idea of Progress took three forms in as many +years. First it was a pure force moving straight ahead toward a goal of +unimaginable splendor, even whose questionable products like bigger +cannon and higher explosives accomplished by one of its larger ironies +benefits that were the opposite of their purposes. + +Then assuming the aspects of a more personal deity, it became capable of +intentions and could choose courses utterly inconsistent with itself in +order to achieve ends that would be splendidly consistent with itself. +It made larger demands upon faith. + +Then it began to require a little aid from man himself, on the principle +that God helps them that help themselves, the cleaning up by men of the +human rubbish heap, the purging of autocracy by democracy. Human +responsibility began to emerge. The picture in our heads was changing. + +Then, as the war came to a close it became apparent that President +Wilson's happy idea that democracies, being stupid and unready to fight, +would live together in eternal peace, was inadequate. The treaty would +leave the three great democracies armed as the autocracies never had +been armed. They might elect to remain so and use their weapons as +provocatively as any Hapsburg or Hohenzollern ever did. Men must +organize, must league themselves together, must govern themselves +internationally in order to have peace, which was no longer an +accidental by-product of the modern factory, but must be created by men +themselves, deliberately acting to that end. Men must work out their own +salvation, aided and admonished of course by such perfect works of +progress as a war to end war. + +Men make the attempt. The peoples of the earth assemble and write a +treaty which keeps the chief democratic nations on the continent of +Europe armed against each other, which provides endless subjects of +dispute among the smaller countries; and they sign a covenant which the +unanimous opinion of mankind rejects as an effective safeguard against +future wars and which many regard as dividing the earth into two hostile +camps. "It was humanity's failure," declares General Smuts. "There will +always be war," asserts President Harding, calling a conference not to +end war but to lessen the cost of preparing for war. + +Not only has material progress failed to produce peace as its +by-product, but moral progress has failed to produce peace as its +deliberate product. + +And Progress is in reality moving forward to wars more deadly and more +ruinous than the last. Weapons were developed toward the end of the +Great War capable of vastly worse havoc than any used during its course. +And only a beginning has been made. If we may come to use the power that +holds atoms together in the driving of engines, we may also use it in +war to blast whole cities from the face of the earth. Conquest of the +air means larger bombs from the air. Greater knowledge of chemistry +means industrial advancement and also deadlier poison gases. Material +gains bring compensating material ills or the possibility of them. + +Even the material gains, great as they have been, seem somewhat smaller +today than they once were thought to be. In our most optimistic moments +before the war we had the pleasant illusion of steadily decreasing hours +of labor and steadily lowering costs. Men had worked twelve, ten, and +finally eight hours a day, and it was predicted that this process would +go on until six, perhaps four hours a day would be sufficient to supply +the needs of the race. + +We paid five cent fares on the street cars and were hopeful that they +would become three cent fares; three cents was established by law in +many cities as the maximum charge. The railroads collected a little over +two cents a mile for carrying passengers and in many states statutes +were enacted establishing two cents a mile as the legal rate. We were +impressed by striking examples of lowering prices, in the automobile +industry for example, and were confident that this was the rule of +modern life. + +Prices, except of food products, were steadily decreasing; there might +be an end to this movement but we were nowhere near the end. The wonders +of modern inventions, and if not these, the economics of concentrated +organization, and if not these, the use of by-products, were steadily +lowering costs. The standard of living was rising. What was the rich +man's luxury in one generation was the poor man's necessity in the next. +It would always be so. That was Progress. + +We now pay seven or eight cents to ride on street cars and more than +three cents a mile to travel on trains. All prices have advanced. The +standard of living has declined and we ask ourselves if it will not have +to decline still further. No one now talks of a six-hour day. We +recognize a check in the process toward increasing well-being at less +effort. Life has become more difficult. Progress is no longer a simple +and steady movement onward in a single direction. Like evolution +sometimes it seems to stand still or perhaps go back. Like evolution it +requires a _vital elan_; it is a thing of leaps and rests. We are less +enthusiastic about it when it rests. + +We blame our discomfiture, the higher prices and the lower standard of +living on the war, but much of it was inevitable, war or no war. The +idea that the struggle for existence would grow steadily easier was +largely a conclusion from appearances. We were raising our standard of +living by skimming the cream of our natural resources. When our original +forests were cut, when the most easily mined veins of iron and coal were +exhausted, when oil wells ceased to gush and had to be pumped, unless +substitutes were found, all the basic costs of production would advance. +Ultimately they would advance to the point where economies of +organization, of quantity production, of by-product development, so far +as they have been realized, would no longer serve to keep down final +prices. We were rapidly reaching that point when the war came. + +We lived under an illusion. What we called the results of progress was +the rapid exhaustion of easily available resources. We used our capital +and thought ourselves rich. And we lie under a burden of debt made much +heavier by the weapons which progress put into our hands. Progress had +not made war too expensive to fight but it had made peace too expensive +to be borne. We forgot the law of diminishing returns. We ignored the +lessons of history that all ages come to an end, when the struggle for +existence once more grows severe until new instruments are found equal +to the further conquest over nature. Useful inventions have not kept +pace with increasing consumption and rapidly disappearing virgin +resources. The process of steadily lowering costs of production has +stopped and reverse process has set in. Spectacular inventions like the +airplane have deluded us into the belief that Progress, always blessing +us, we had the world by the tail. But coal and iron became harder and +costlier to mine. Oil neared exhaustion. Timber grew scarcer. +Agricultural lands smaller in proportion to population. + +Immense possibilities lie before us. So they did before the man with the +stone hatchet in his hand, but he waited long for the steam, saw and +drill and crusher. An invention which would mean as much in the conquest +of nature as did the steam engine would make the war debt as easily +borne as the week's account at the grocery store. But when will progress +vouchsafe it? Converting coal into power we waste 85 per cent of its +energy in coal and call that efficient. But does Progress always respond +instantly to our needs with new methods and devices, like a nurse +responding to a hungry child? A few years ago we were sure it did, but +now we look anxiously at the skies for a sign. + +We had another characteristic pleasant illusion during the war. +Progress, like the Lord, in all previous conflicts was on our side. Here +was a great need of humanity. Surely, according to rule, it should be +met by some great invention that would blast the Germans out of their +places in the earth and give the sons of light an easy and certain +victory. All the familiars of the deity sat about in boards watching for +the indication that the engine to meet the needs of civilization had +been granted. But it never was. + +I do not write this to suggest that men, especially American men, have +ceased to believe in Progress. They would be fools if they had. I write +to suggest that they have ceased to believe in Progress. They would be +fools if they had not. A great illusion is gone, one of the chief +dislocations wrought by the war. + +What the war has done to our way of thinking has been to lay a new +stress upon man as a free and responsible agent. After all the battles +were won not by guns, or tanks or gas or airplanes, but as always by the +common man offering his breast to the shots of the enemy. The hope of +the future is all in human organizations, in societies of nations, in +councils and conferences. Men's minds turn once more to governments with +renewed expectation. Not only do we think for the first time seriously +of a government of the world but we focus more attention on the +government at Washington. Groups with special interests to serve reach +out openly to control it. + +The war laid a new emphasis on government. Not only did the government +have our persons and our lives at its command but it assumed authority +over our food, it directed our factories and our railroads, it told us +what we could manufacture and ship, it decided who could borrow of the +general credit and for what purposes, it fixed the prices at which we +could buy and sell. It came to occupy a new place in the national +consciousness and one which it will never wholly lose. One rival to +it,--the belief, having its roots in early religious ideas, and +strengthened by scientific theory and the outward results of the great +inventions, that moved by some irresistible impulse, life went steadily +forward to higher and higher planes, and that man had but little to do +but pluck the fruits of progress--has been badly shattered by events. + +But men do not change beliefs suddenly. Perhaps after all the war was +only the way of progress--to usher in a new and brilliant day. Perhaps +the unfolding future has something near in store far greater and better +than went before. We shall not trust men too far, men with their +obstinate blindness, men with their originally sinful habit of thinking +they know better than the forces which rule the world. We want not +leaders but weather cocks, who will veer to the kindlier wind that may +blow when it is yet only a zephyr. + +We turn to men yet, we cling a little to the hope that fate will yet +save us. This division in us accounts for Lloyd George and Harding, our +own commonplace "best we have on hand" substitute for the infinitely +variable Englishman, adjusted to every breath that blows, who having no +set purpose of his own offers no serious obstacle to any generous design +of fate. + +Senator Borah once said to me, "The Administration has no definite +policies." And it is not Mr. Harding's fault. If he wanted to form any +the people wouldn't let him. They elected him not to have any. They +desired in the White House some one who would not look further ahead +than the next day until the future became clearer. If he had purposes +events might prove them to be wrong. + +The same fundamental idea underlay the remark of a member of the +Cabinet, at the outset of the recent disarmament and Far Eastern +Conference, that "Lloyd George was the hope of the gathering because he +had no principles." + +The war destroyed many men but it half restored Man. You see how +inevitable optimism is. The ways of Progress are indeed past finding +out. Governments during it performed the impossible. They even took in +hand the vast industrial mechanism which we ordinarily leave to the +control of the "forces." We half suspect they might do the impossible in +peace but we half hope that some kindlier fate is in store for us than +to trust ourselves to human intelligence. We don't know whether to put +our money on Man or on Progress; so we put it on Mr. Harding. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +GOLDEN WORDS TURN TO BRASS + + +Unlike government by Progress, government by business, by the +semi-sacred intermediaries between the will to increase and the rest of +us, began to disintegrate before the war; which merely completed the +process. + +Let us consider what has happened in the last few years to government by +business, that government which the smoking compartment philosopher has +in mind when he says so hopefully of Mr. Harding: "_They_ will see to it +that he gets along all right." + +The first manifestation of nationality in this country was the +nationality of business. Before industry became national nothing was +national. The United States was a pleasant congeries of localities. It +was held together by reading everywhere the story of the Battle of +Bunker Hill in the same school history, which sometimes bore a different +author's name but which was always the same history. "Don't fire till +you can see the whites of their eyes" and "If we don't hang together we +shall all hang separately" were the unifying bond, and they were enough. +We had the same sense of identity as an infant has when it becomes aware +that the delightful toe and the delightful mouth where it is inserted +appertain vaguely to the one ego. The local factory and the local bank +subtended the entire arc of economic consciousness. There was one +single-track railroad which ran from Podunk to Peopack and another from +Peopack to Peoria, unrelated, discontinuous. + +In those simple times when business was local the local factory owner, +banker, or railroad builder was the hero of his neighborhood. It was he +who "put the town on the map." He gave it prosperity. He built it by +attracting labor into his employment. He gave it contact with the +outside world. If you owned town lots it was he who gave them value and +it was he who might take away their value if he was offended. If you had +a general store it was he who added to its patronage by adding to the +population. If you raised farm products nearby it was he who improved +your market. He built the fine house which it was your pride to show +visitors. Your success and happiness was bound up in his. He conferred +his blessings for a consideration, for you were careful to make no laws +which restricted the freedom of his operations. You permitted him a vast +unofficial "say" in your local government; you gave him a little the +best of it in the assessment for taxes. You felt a little lifted up by +his condescension in calling you by your first name and stopping to ask +about your family on the street corner. You were jealous of his rights +because after all the value of your own depended upon his use of his. + +When business figures arose upon the national horizon they were merely +these local figures vastly multiplied. As a people we called them "Jim" +and "Jay," and "Dan'l," just as we had called the local manufacturer and +banker by their first names. All the good will that went to the local +business leaders went to them. They put money into our pockets, when +they didn't happen to take it out of our pockets; on the whole they were +doing the great work of making this country a richer and better land. +Some who did not conceive the resources of the printing press in the +issuance of new securities had to suffer, but that was their lookout; +suffering for some was the way of the world. + +Business began to be national in the tying together into systems the +little dislocated railroads that local enterprise had laid down and in +the creation of a national securities market for the distribution of +ownership in the new combinations. + +A new era opened when Gould and Fisk and Drew started at full speed +their rival printing presses in Wall Street. Look over our whole drab +political story from the death of Lincoln to the arrival of Roosevelt, +more than a generation, and, if we did not preserve the names of our +Presidents in our histories, how many names are there worth +remembering? Garfield was shot, which was dramatic. Cleveland was a fat +man who used long Latin words. He was also the first Democratic chief +executive in more than thirty years. What else? Who else? + +Meanwhile an amazing array of business personages diverted attention +from the inconspicuous Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys, who were the +flower of our public life. Gould, Fisk, Drew, Hill, Carnegie, the +Rockefellers, Harriman, Morgan, Ryan--business was fertile of men, +politics sterile; you have to go back to the foundation of the +government for a period so prolific in men, of the other sort, or to the +age of Elizabeth or of Pericles for another as prolific in men, of still +another kind. How could the dull sideshow in Washington compete with the +big spectacle in New York? + +These demigods of business were not only shining personalities; they +were doing the work of making America great and rich; we all shared in +the prosperity they were creating. To go back to the small town again, +who was it increased the opportunities of the storekeeper, the +neighboring farmer, or real estate holder? Was it the mayor and the +common council by passing ordinances about street signs and sidewalk +encumbrances? Or the manufacturer or railroad builder who put the town +on the map, giving employment to labor or an outlet for its products? + +The government at Washington occupied a place in our consciousness +similar to that of the government of the small town. It was charged with +our national defense, a function of such little importance that we had +hardly an army or a navy. It conducted our economic defense, against the +foreigner, with laws written, however, by business itself, which +naturally knew best how it wanted to be defended; you could not, in your +proper senses, suppose that the Hayeses, Arthurs, and McKinleys were +wiser than the Carnegies, Hills, Morgans, or Harrimans. For the rest it +was told severely to let well enough alone. To make assurance doubly +sure that it would do so it was rather openly given over to the great +men who were creating the national wealth. + +Starting with the combination of the little speculatively built +railroads into systems and the development of a security market to float +the shares of stock in the new companies, business took on rapidly a +more and more national character. Great bankers arose to finance the +consolidations. An investing public with a wider horizon than that which +used to put its money in local enterprises entrusted its funds in the +hands of the great bankers or took its chances in the market for stocks. +Industry went through a similar concentration. Stronger companies +absorbed their weaker and less successful rivals. The same bankers who +sat in the boards of directors of the railroads representing their +investing public took their places in the directorate of manufacturing +combinations. + +The railroads seeking the business of the big industrial companies and +the big industrial companies desiring favors from the railroads placed +representatives in each others' boards. This interlocking created a +national organization of business dominated by a few striking and +spectacular figures. + +The popular imagination was as much heated over the discovery of the +United States as a single field of enterprise as the imagination of +Europe had been centuries earlier over the discovery of the new world. + +The psychology of the local industry period carried over into this new +period of national industry. The whole country became one vast small +town. The masters of industry, banking, and the railroads were the +leading citizens. They were "putting the United States on the map," as +the local creator of wealth had put the small town on the map. They were +doing something vast, from which we all undoubtedly benefited. Perhaps +we could not trace our advantage so immediately as we could to the +enterprise of the man who brought population to our town, swelling the +price of our real estate or increasing the sales at our stores. But what +had been a matter of experience on a small scale was a matter of belief +on a large scale. The same consequences must follow, with manifold +abundance. And the nation was demonstrably growing rapidly, immensely +richer; surely cause and effect. + +Business had from the first taken on among us, as Mr. Lowes Dickinson +remarks, a religious character; and when by a great thrust it +overreached the bounds of locality and became national, its major +prophets emerged. Mr. Van Wyck Brooks quotes Mark Twain as writing: "The +words of a proprietor of a rich coal mine have a golden sound, and his +common sayings are as if they were solid wisdom." How much more of this +sacred character inhered in the heroes who created nationwide railroad +systems, vast steelmaking consolidations, monopolies of oil and coal! + +When a New York lawyer said of E. H. Harriman that he moved in spheres +which no one else dare tread, he was putting, a little late, into words +the national awe of the men who had overleapt the bounds of locality and +bestrode the continent industrially, the heads of the vast business +hierarchy. When Mr. Baer said that he operated the Reading Railroad by +divine right he said only what a worshipping people had taught him to +think. Those men did not use this half-religious language by accident; +they crystallized into phrases the feeling of the country toward those +who had done God's work of making it rich, making it successful. + +Each like an unconscious Cervantes helped to laugh our industrial +chivalry away. + +How easy it is to believe about yourself what everyone believes about +you! How hard not to! How easy to believe that you rule railroads by +"divine right," or walk in "higher spheres," when the whole unexpressed +consciousness of a hundred million people assigns you just such hieratic +appurtenances and privileges. How doubt in the face of all this +evidence? They identified themselves with Progress, and Progress was +what ruled the world. If you have faith and if you are fortified with +the faith of others, self-identification with one of the larger forces +is not difficult. Was not what they were doing Progress, was it not the +realization of that benignant will to the utter blossoming of chaos into +utility which was planned in the beginning? Were they not instruments +rather than mere men, instruments of the greater purpose of which +America was the perfect work? If you believe in theocratic forces you +believe also in chosen human agencies for carrying them out. + +They were more than instruments of Progress. I have spoken of government +by economic law as having challenged political government in the +consciousness of the people. As a country we perhaps believe in economic +law more firmly than any nation in the world. Wasn't America being +produced in accordance with economic law and wasn't America one of the +marvels of the earth? I asked a salesman recently, a man with no +personal interests which would give him the prejudices of the business +world, why he hated Henry Ford. "Because," he replied instantly and +without hesitation, "he defies economic law." He spoke like a true +American. To defy economic law and make money at it is like selling the +Savior for twenty pieces of silver. + +"The physical laws," says De Gourmont, "promulgated or established by +the scientists, are confessions of ignorance. When they cannot explain a +mechanism they declare its movements are due to a law. Bodies fall by +virtue of the law of gravitation. This has precisely the same value in +the serious order as the comic _virtus dormitiva_." In the promulgation +of economic law our interest perverts the simple and just operation of +our ignorance. In the field of physical phenomena we perceive a series +of uniform events and call that uniformity a law. In the field of +economic phenomena we perceive a series of events uniformly serving our +interests and call that uniformity a law. + +These greater business men of the past fruitful generation operated on +the whole over a long period of falling prices. Wealth accumulated. You +read about it in the government reports, dividing the total by the total +population. The division thus effected was mighty assuring. Labor was +better paid. Higher institutions of learning multiplied. Libraries +housed in marble grew upon every crossroads. Intellectual as well as +material needs were in process of being better satisfied. We were +approaching an age when ink upon white paper, now so cheap, cheaper +than ever in the pitiful past, should lift humanity to a new and higher +level. + +[Illustration: REPRESENTATIVE FRANK W. MONDELL OF WYOMING] + +The evidence was conclusive. These greater business men were in supreme, +in conspicuous direction of the country's development. The happiest +results followed. They worked in harmony with economic law, for they +prospered gloriously and one could no more break economic law and +prosper than one could break criminal law and keep out of jail. Until +Ford came no one could defy economic law with impunity. + +And law and justice being two ideas that associate themselves together +in the human mind, in a binder of optimism perhaps, like the disparate +elements that form clinkers in a furnace, they were accomplishing that +perfect work of the justice which inhered in things at the beginning, +when tiny atoms with the urge to produce an earth fit for man to live +on, to produce America in short, began to discover affinities for each +other. No wonder they penetrated "higher spheres" ruled by "divine +right," and that "golden words" dropped from their mouths. Progress, +destiny, an instinct for economic law, it was much to unite one man. + +Again, they were more than this. Men cannot be so universally looked to +for the welfare of the nation as they were, without becoming in effect +the government of that nation. Business and the government were one. +Public opinion at that time would have regarded an administration which +defied the great commercial interests as dangerous to the country's +advancement. Lawyers like Mr. Knox or Mr. Root, who had proved their +value to them, went to the Senate as their spokesmen. Able and ambitious +men in both Houses of Congress, wishing power and influence, became +their agents. The chairmen of the important committees of both houses +were in their confidence and spoke with authority because of what they +represented. Some of the virtue of the great, some shadow of divine +right, descended upon them. Among valets the valet of the king is king. + +We forget, in the great outcry that was raised a few years ago over the +"invisible government," that the invisible government was once +sufficiently visible, almost consciously recognized, and fully accepted. +It seemed the most natural thing in the world that the men who were +making the country rich, making it a nation economically, should work +their will freely at Washington. We jealously guarded their liberties. +Woe unto the legislator who would interfere with their freedom to +contract, for example, for the labor of children, which we described as +the freedom of children to sell their labor advantageously. Adult labor +banding together to arrange terms of its own sale was felt to be a +public enemy. Every age has its fetish; the medicine man who could +exorcise the evil spirit in stone and bush was not a more privileged +character than his successor at whose touch prosperity sprang out of +the earth, at whose word the mysterious economic forces which might in +their wrath prove so destructive, bowed and became kind. + +Make a few individuals the embodiment of a national purpose that has +long existed, unconscious and unquestioned, give them as you inevitably +do in such a case the utmost freedom that is possible on this earth, let +them be limited enough mentally so that they are blind to any other +possible purpose; do all these things and you produce great men. It was +an age of great men, Rockefellers, Carnegies, Morgans, Hills, Ryans, +Harrimans, and a host of others, richer in personalities than any other +period of American life except that which produced Washington, Hamilton, +Franklin, Jefferson, and Marshall. They were the flowering of the whole +pioneer civilization. + +One hundred and fifty years of freedom has produced few free men. +Perhaps these were all. They may not have been free intellectually. +Charles Francis Adams writes of their kind: "I have known, and known +tolerably well, a good many successful men,--'big' financially, men +famous during the last half century; and a less interesting crowd I do +not care to encounter. Not one that I have ever known would I care to +meet again, nor is one of them associated in my mind with the idea of +humor, thought, or refinement." + +Never mind. They were free in all the essential ways. The men of whom +Adams wrote had no such sense of their limitations as he expressed. +Only an Adams would then have had it, and the Adamses were not what M. +Galtier of _Le Temps_ suggested when, hastily absorbing the American +spirit at Washington, he said to me: "I am reading _The Education of +Henry Adams_: He was what you would call a typical American, was he +not?" + +An Adams, even Charles Francis Adams, writing of that time, was +untypical enough, to have missed the point, which was not whether these +men "'big' financially" were interesting, witty, thoughtful, or refined, +but whether they were free. And they were; they were so sure of +themselves, and public opinion was so sure of them, that they +concentrated on the one great aim of that simple day, and did not waste +themselves upon non-essentials like "humor, thought, or refinement." + +I have a theory that we are wrong in ascribing the poverty of American +literature and statesmanship to the richness of our business life. "All +our best and ablest minds went into commerce," we say. We flatter +ourselves. Mr. Carnegie, born in the days of Elizabeth, might not have +been Shakespeare. Mr. Harriman was perhaps, after all, no mute Milton, +Mr. Morgan no Michaelangelo. + +These brave spirits developed in business not so much perhaps because of +the national urge to "conquer a continent" as because in business, +enjoying the immunity it then did, they found the utmost opportunity for +self-expression, the one great measure of freedom which this free +country afforded. A jealous public guarded their divine right from +impious hands. They believed in themselves. The people believed in them. +So the flowering of the pioneer age came, in such a race of men as are +not on the earth today, and the rule of business reached its climax. + +It was an autumn flowering, rich and golden like the Indian summer of +New England culture, a sign that a cycle was run. Adams sniffing from +the transcendental heights of Boston wrote: "a race of mere +money-getters and traders." Remember the sneers in our cocksure press of +those days at the "culture" of Boston? Boston has had its revenge. The +words "mere money-getters" bit in. There were other objects in life +beside pioneering the industrial opportunities of a whole continent just +brought together into commercial unity. Mr. Morgan began to buy art. Mr. +Carnegie began to buy libraries and started authorship himself. The men +"'big' financially" began to look over their shoulders and see the +shadows--as we all do now--where they a little before kept their eyes +straight forward and saw the one clear vision, the truth, such as it +was, that made them free. + +I have traced that element in the American political consciousness, +government by business, to its highest moment. + +"Divine right" is only safe when it is implicit. When you begin to avow +it, as Mr. Baer did, it is already in question. The national passion +for equality began to work. Had not Mr. Carnegie confessed the weakness +in his soul's fortress by writing a book? Had not Mr. Morgan by buying +art suggested the one aim of pioneering on a grand scale might not be +life's sole end? + +Mr. Baer with his avowal, Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Morgan with their seeking +of the broader satisfactions, Mr. Schwab behaving like a king in exile +at the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, may have invited what followed. But +they were only expressing in their own way the sense becoming general +that pioneering was over and that its ideals were too narrow and too +few--even if no clear sense was coming of what state and what ideals +were to take their place. Men turn from leaders whose day of greatest +usefulness is past and set up new leaders against them. Against the +government by business the first great national unity that entered the +American consciousness they began to erect the state, the national +government at Washington. + +No one meant to end government by business and substitute for it +government by the people. Not for a moment. We devised a new set of +checks and balances, like that between the various branches provided for +in our Constitution, a new political organism which should equal and +coexist with the one we already had. The government personified by Mr. +Roosevelt was the check and balance to the government personified by +Mr. Harriman and Mr. Morgan. Governments never die but merely recede in +the national consciousness, like the old clothes which we keep in the +attic. Thus revolutions never effect a revolution; democracy is only a +Troy built upon nine other prehistoric Troys: beneath, you find +aristocracy, rule by divine right, despotism, theocracy, and every other +governance on which men in their invincible optimism have pinned their +faith. + +The revolution which Mr. Roosevelt brought about was the kind which +exclaims loudly "malefactors of great wealth" while writing to Mr. +Harriman "we are both practical men." It was the kind of revolution this +country desired. The nation wished to eat its cake and have it, to +retain government by business and have alongside it another government, +as powerful, as interesting, as colorful, as rich in personalities, as +the late autumn of pioneering had brought into gorgeous bloom. + +Mr. Roosevelt's method with the new government was this: Senator Aldrich +and Speaker Cannon representing the still powerful coexistent government +by business in Congress, would call at the White House and tell the +President just how far he could go and no further. They would emerge. A +moment later the press in response to a summons would arrive. Mr. +Roosevelt would say: "I have just sent for Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Cannon +and forced them to accept my policy, etc." Nobody was deceived. Unlike +the philosopher who made all knowledge his province, Mr. Roosevelt made +all knowledge his playground, and not only all knowledge but all the +arts, including the art of government. + +In Mr. Roosevelt's day the two governments, government by business and +political government, existed side by side, of about equal proportions; +and no one really wished either to overtop the other. We were indulging +in revolution with our customary prudence. + +The human passion for equality which had risen against the last of those +dominant figures, the last and greatest of the pioneers, and started to +set up representatives of the public as great as they were, was +singularly fortunate in its first manifestations. It "found a man," in +that most amazing jack-of-all-trades, Mr. Roosevelt. + +If business had its array of extraordinary personalities, the rival +establishment had its Roosevelt, who surrounded himself with a shining +group of amateurs, Mr. Root, Mr. Knox, General Wood, James Garfield, Mr. +Pinchot, Mr. Knox Smith, the "Tennis Cabinet," to all of whom he +succeeded in imparting some vividness from his own abounding +personality. If pioneers from the days of Daniel Boone on have been +romantic, amateurs are equally romantic. It was romance against romance. + +The balance between the two governments did not last long. Government by +business was declining. It was being extruded from the control of +political affairs. Political government was rising. It was reaching out +to control certain phases of business itself. The great pioneers of +national industry were growing old. They were becoming self-conscious, +vaguely aware of changing circumstances, casting about for solider +foundations than "mere money getting," buying art and writing books, +establishing foundations, talking foolishly about their "divine right," +about the crime of "dying rich." + +A race of gamblers came in their train who caricatured their activities. +The great figures who were passing took long chances magnificently, +pioneer fashion, "to strike it rich," to found industries or magnify +avenues of trade. Their imitators, the Gateses, Morses, Heinzes, +and ---- took long chances vulgarly for the excitement there was in them. + +Railroads had to be "rescued" from them. Wall Street had to organize its +Vigilantes against them. + +I went as a reporter to see ---- once in New York and found him in his +library drinking. He sent for his servant, ordered six bottles of +champagne at once, and after his man had gone opened the whole six, one +after another, on his library rug. He had to exhibit in some way his +large manner of doing things, and this was the best way he could think +of at the moment. He belonged to a fevered race, intoxicated with the +idea of bigness, juggling millions about to no more useful end than +that of pouring champagne on a carpet. They were the _reductio ad +absurdum_ of the pioneer. + +The public no longer put its faith blindly as before in those romantic +figures, the great industrial pioneers, those Mississippi River pilots +who knew every rock and reef in the river. Stripped of much power and +prestige, no longer looked to without question for the safety of the +country, that magnificent species, the great pioneer, disappeared. It is +as dead and gone as that equally magnificent species the Mississippi +pilot of Mark Twain's day. + +The legitimate succession was the dynasty--it was the dynasty that +destroyed belief in the divine right of kings--of the second generation, +of the younger Stillman, of the younger Rockefeller, competent but +unremarkable, of the younger Morgan, more capable than the rest, +doubtless, but compare his countenance with the eagle mien of his +predecessor. + +I used often to discuss with Mr. Roosevelt the members of the dynasty. +He had no illusions. We both knew well a second-generation newspaper +proprietor, a young man of excellent character, as prudent as the +earlier generation had been daring, a petty King who always had an +aspiring Mayor of the palace at his elbow, inclined to go to sleep at +his post from excessive watching of his property. As we would go over +the names in the dynasty, Mr. Roosevelt would say almost invariably: "I +can't describe him better to you than to say he's another ----," naming +our mutual acquaintance, one of the many of his sort into whose hands by +inheritance the control of business has descended. + +Whatever the reason is, whether the inertia of large organization and +the weakening of competition have favored the remaining in power of the +second generation, whether we have evolved but one great type, the +pioneer, whose day is past, and have not yet differentiated the true +business man any more than we have differentiated the true statesman; +whether that psychological change which I have sought to trace, that +denial of freedom which once was the pioneers'--the new laws, the hard +restraints operating now upon business as upon everything else and +enforcing conformity--there are today no Titans, no one stealing fire +from the heaven of Progress for the benefit of the human race--unless +Henry Ford--no Carnegies, Morgans, Rockefellers, Harrimans, of the +blessed nineties. + +The old sureness is gone. The great pioneers were never assailed by +doubts: they went straight forward, wearing the blinkers of a single +aim, which kept their eyes like those of harnessed horses in the narrow +road; God was with them, Progress was with them, Public Opinion was with +them, the government at Washington was with them. + +But their successors, like everyone else, look over their shoulders and +see the shadows: see the government at Washington and attach a comic +importance to that bewildered figure; just as the government at +Washington looks over its shoulder and sees at New York the government +by business, its traditional master, and wishing a master, is unaware +that the twilight of the gods is come. And both see that greatest of all +shadows, Public Opinion, the new monster of Frankenstein which everyone +feeds with propaganda, and fears. These three things were all one in the +bright days of the great pioneers, and in that perfect unity everyone +was sure, so sure, and the few were free, so free! + +Business no longer imposes itself up on the imagination through its +extraordinary personalities. In vain do we seek to recover the past. In +vain does the popular magazine fiction strive to furnish what life no +longer does--the pioneer ideal, the hero who overcomes fire and flood +and the machination of enemies and moves irresistibly forward to +success, who believes in himself, whose motto is that the will is not to +be gainsaid, whose life is one long Smile Week. + +Vast propaganda exists to hold us true to the old faith; we read it as +we used to read Sunday School fiction; but religion only sought its way +into hearts within the covers of E. P. Roe when other channels began to +close. We beat the bushes for the great, the kings that should come +after Agamemnon. Monthlies of vast circulation tell us of every +jack-of-all-trades who hits upon a million dollars. This one found out +how to sell patches for automobile tires. That one was an office boy who +never knew when it became five o'clock in the afternoon. Our faith +requires vast stirring. + +To the gradual weakening of the idea that business was all-wise and +all-powerful, the war greatly contributed. Before 1914 men would say +confidently, "Ah, but business, the bankers, will not let the nations +fight. They have only to pull the strings of the purse and there will be +no money for the fighters." After hostilities began they would say with +equal confidence: "It will be all over in six weeks. The bankers will +not let it go on." + +Business was, however, not only powerless to prevent war but it stood by +impotent while the very foundations on which it itself rested were +destroyed. One illusion went. + +Then again, during the war unorganized private production failed. +Publicly organized production was immensely successful. Governments the +world over showed that the industrial mechanism could be made to run +faster and turn out more than ever before. The illusion that business +was a mystery understood only by initiates, the men "'big' financially," +was shaken. + +After the war was over the government organization for regulating +production was abandoned. A period of chaos, rising prices, speculation, +wasteful production, of luxuries, ensued and then a crash. One may +explain all that happened in both cases on the basis of the war. But +business needed triumphs to restore its old place in the public +consciousness, and it has had instead a catastrophe. + +The weakness of business today is its division. Many financial leaders +saw the depression that would follow peace. Frank A. Vanderlip, for one, +came back from Europe in 1919 full of warnings. He counselled +moderation. He urged deflation instead of further inflation. His advice +was unpopular with those who saw profits from a sudden withdrawal of +wartime restraints. And the consequence of his prudence, according to +what he has told his friends, was his being forced to retire from the +Presidency of the great Wall Street bank of which he had been head. + +Henry Ford, moreover, is a destroyer of old illusions. He "defies +economic laws." He does what business says is impossible. In a day of +high prices he produces at an unprecedentedly low price. He does not cut +wages. He finds a market where there is no market. To lower his costs he +needs cheaper steel than he can buy, so he manufactures it himself +cheaper than the great steelmakers can manufacture it. He operates +independently of the "big business" group. Mr. Morgan sends for him and +he declines to go. He grows vastly rich, proving that all the knowledge +the men "'big' financially" have of the mystery of business is no +knowledge at all, only rules made in their own interest. + +And business never twice answers the same question in the same way. One +week Mr. Morgan and the international bankers come to Washington and +tell Mr. Harding that American credit must go into foreign trade. The +next week equally "big" bankers from the interior visit the capital and +tell the President that American credit must stay at home developing +American industries. It is the same with the tariff. It is the same with +the taxes. Business is not of one mind about anything. + +A politician recently described business on errands of advice to +Washington. "One bunch of fat boys with high hats and morning coats +comes to Washington. The Administration holds out its nose wishing to be +led by it. The fat boys decline the nose. They are not leading anybody. +In deprecatory manner they say: 'Please drive North. We think that is +the way.' They go. The next day another bunch of fat boys in high hats +and morning coats arrives. Again the offer of the nose. Again the +declination. And this time: 'Please drive South. We're sure that is the +way.'" + +The government strains its ear to catch the word from Wall Street. But +there never was a time when business had less influence at Washington +than now. It is divided in its own mind, it is ruled by second-rate men. +Of two governments that have occupied a place in the popular +consciousness, government by business and government by parties, I do +not know which is weaker. I do not know which has less unity and +capacity to function, the Republican party or big business. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SUPER-PRESIDENT GOES DOWN IN THE GENERAL SMASH + + +When we became doubtful, as pioneering drew to a close, that business +served a social end; when, becoming jealous of its great and +irresponsible power, we started to set up an equal or greater authority +in Washington, we followed the line of least resistance; we did the easy +and obvious thing; we had recourse to a one man government. + +We magnified the office of President and satisfied that primitive +instinct in us which must see the public welfare and the public safety +personified in a single individual, something visible, tangible, +palpable. The President speaks and you read about him in the daily +press; the President poses and you see him in the movies and feel +assured, as in smaller realms under simpler conditions people were able +to see their monarch dressed and equipaged in ways that connected him +with all the permanence of the past, a symbol of stability, wisdom, and +the divine favor. + +If the trappings are lacking, imagination and the emotions supply their +moral equivalent. Of our little temporary king no one must speak evil; +no voice may be raised in criticism. + +His wife, up till some fourth of March an elderly country woman grown +dull in the monotony of village life or worn with the task of pushing an +unambitious husband forward to power, looking her most natural when in +the frankness of early morning unpreparedness she ran in her apron +across the street to gossip with the wife of a neighbor, becomes to the +awed eyes of Washington women, quite "beautiful." You hear them say it +of every--let us quote the illuminating phrase--every "first lady of the +land." + +When Burke said that aristocracy was the most natural thing in the world +he did not go half far enough. The most natural thing in the world, the +thing which is always repeating itself under no matter whatever form of +government exists, is an autocracy. In national emergencies, in times of +peril, people put their fate in one man's hands; as in the late war when +Mr. Wilson was made by common consent a greater autocrat than any Czar +of all the Russias. + +The herd instinctively follows one authority. The mob is single-headed. +All the traditions of the race lead back toward despotism and it is +easier to revert toward something primitive than to go forward toward +something higher in the scale of development. + +And, moreover, the vital contacts of our lives are with authority +imposed from above. Our childhood is controlled by the autocracy of the +family. Education disposes of our hours, forces our inclinations, +represses our individuality, and turns us out stamped with a uniform +mark, the finished product of its unvarying course. The single head of +the classroom is the teacher. The single head of the school is the +principal, of all the schools the Superintendent. + +More important still, our economic lives are at the disposal of +autocracy. We earn our livings under foremen and managers. Everywhere is +the boss who says to us "Do this or starve." He represents to us not +only authority but wisdom. The organization out of which proceeds to us +the beneficent results of food and clothing operates because he is +endowed with a knowledge which we have not. "He knows about it all, he +knows, he knows." + +In all the essential everyday relations of life we have never been able +to evolve any higher organization than that of the chieftain and his +tribe. We read about democracy in the newspapers; once every two years +or every four years we go through certain motions which vaguely relate +to democracy, and which are not convincing motions. + +Democracy is an artificial edifice imposed upon a society which is in +all other than its political aspects entirely primitive. All our direct +experiences are of one man power. It is the only organization we +actually know at first hand. We trust to it for the means to live. We +revert to it politically whenever it becomes an issue of life and death, +and even in lesser emergencies. + +So it came about that when we determined to have a government at +Washington independent of and better representing the social will, +whatever that might come to be, than the government of business we had +recourse to that one form of rule which is ever present in our +consciousness, the only form under which the race has lived long enough +to have any real faith in it. + +The new social ideal had not sufficiently taken form to utilize all the +complex institutions which existed in this country. Business was at that +time intrenched in Congress. It would have been a huge, an impossible +task, to re-make Congress, especially when no one knew definitely what +purpose should animate the re-making. It was so much easier to find one +man than to find many men. It is so much easier for a people which does +not know where it is going but means to go there to choose one man, and +by an act of faith endow him with the divination of leadership, than it +is to have a national will and express it through numerous +representatives. + +The amplified executive is a sort of blind pool of the national +purposes. Creating an autocracy is an act of faith; democracy is work. +And faith is so much easier than work. + +We did not think of it thus, as an exhibition of political inertia, as a +reversion to an outworn type. On the contrary, we were immensely pleased +with our innovation. As usual the United States had made an immense +contribution to the art of government. We were repeating the race +history of governments, as a child resumes in his life the race history +of the human kind. We had got so far as to evolve that oldest of human +institutions--autocracy, a mild, denatured autocracy. But we were as +proud of it as a boy is when he put on paper with a pencil the very +picture which his stone age ancestor cut laboriously into a walrus +tooth. + +Our President had more power than the King of England, we boasted, more +than the Emperor of Germany. The monarchies of Europe were obsolete +because they preserved autocracy out of the darkness of the Middle Ages. +Our government was in the forefront of progress because it had created +autocracy out of the suffrage of the people. + +And how clever we were with the restrictions of our written constitution +with its exact balance of powers, executive, legislative, and judicial. +The Fathers had builded wiser than they knew in writing an instrument by +which the carefully distributed authority might be well reconcentrated; +as if they were the first to use words whose import depended on the +point of view of those who interpreted them! + +Acres of space in the newspapers were covered with gratulatory articles +proving that the dominating executive was the inevitable unifying +principle in our disjointed and not otherwise workable government. + +Ours was a government by parties, so the argument ran, and the President +was the head of his party. As a matter of fact the writers of the +Constitution had not conceived of a government by parties. What they had +in mind was what they had before them in the Constitutional Convention +of which they were a part, a government by the best and ablest men of +the community, who should meet together and select the executive; who +should equally through the state legislature choose the Senators. The +role of job brokers was the last thing they imagined themselves to be +creating. Parties came later. Ours was not originally a government of +parties. It is hardly a government by parties today. So there was +nothing inevitable about this great reason why the Executive should be +the element in our system which would hold it together and make it work. + +Nor until the beginning of this century did it ever occur to us that the +President was the head of his party. The control of the organization had +been in other hands, in Hanna's or Quay's or Cameron's, or divided among +a group of men like these three, who represented the interests of +business in the parties, and often also in the Senate. + +The idea that the executive was the party's head was merely a happy +afterthought which was adopted to justify the resort to the line of +least resistance in creating a stronger government at Washington, the +concentration upon one man to represent the national will. We had simply +done what other peoples had so often done in the history of mankind. +When the English wished to weaken the rule of the great barons they +magnified the office of the King. When we wished to get away from the +rule of the barons of business we magnified the office of our elective +King, the President. We invented new reasons for an old expedient. + +And by making the amplified executive the head of his party, which we +did--for the Quays and Hannas speedily disappeared under the new order +and left no successors--we set him to sawing off the limb on which he +sat. If his authority rested on that of his party then to be firm the +authority of the party must be firm. For parties to endure and be strong +there must be a certain quality of permanence about them. They must not +rest upon personalities but on principles and jobs, principles for the +disinterested and for those whose interests are expressed in the +principles, and jobs for those whose interests are less large and +indirect. + +Of parties with the executive as their head nothing remained but their +name. The only nexus there could be between the executive and the mass +of voters was personal. One year a party was Roosevelt, the next year it +was Taft and the distance between Roosevelt and Taft was the distance +between East and West. A little later it even changed its name and voted +in another column because Roosevelt had adopted a new party name and +gone unto a new column. Four years later it split up and much of it went +to Wilson, who temporarily rallied a personal following just as +Roosevelt had done. + +And because the dispensing of jobs was an unseemly occupation for the +executive we reduced by law the patronage that was available for the +sustenance of parties. Thus we substituted personal caprice for the +permanency of parties and at the same time cut down the practical means +of holding organizations together. At the same time the decay of +government by business left parties no longer an instrument of the +economic will of the nation. + +Thus the executive headship was wholly inconsistent with government by +parties, upon which our magnified President was supposed to rest. A +further inconsistency was that we adopted another theory for +strengthening one man power. This was that the President was the leader +of the people. Have we a government by parties there? Not at all; the +power of the executive rests upon something outside of and superior to +parties. + +If the legislative did not respond to pressure he might "go to the +people," as it was called, through the newspapers and upon the stump. He +might discipline the recalcitrant by stirring up public sentiment +against them. He might build up a personal following to such an extent +that his party must have it in order to win. He might encourage the +movement away from parties by attaching people to ideas and measures, +policies that the party had declined to accept. In this theory of +executive power it was conceded that parties were not to be trusted. In +the other it was held that they were a necessary link between the +dissociate branches of government. + +It is no exaggerated notion that executive control of parties +contributed to the disintegration of party government. It is nothing +more than a statement of what actually happened. Roosevelt broke up the +Republican party nationally. He left it with its name covering an +agglomeration of groups and blocs and personal followings, supporters of +various interests difficult to reconcile, whose votes fluctuate from +year to year. + +Mr. Hughes, the same kind of executive and party leader as governor of +New York, left the Republicans of that state in the hands of the little +local banditti. Mr. La Follette, following the same methods as Governor +of Wisconsin, left no one in that state definitely a Republican or a +Democrat. Every voter there is the personal follower of some chieftain. + +And what virtue is there in the theory that the Executive alone +represents the national point of view, that he alone speaks "for the +country?" Political inertia always finds good excuses. + +There are reasons why the President should try to represent the country +as a whole, since he is elected in a nationwide balloting. But there is +no reason why he should succeed in representing the country as a whole, +why he should have a national point of view. + +Why should Mr. Harding have a vast understanding of national problems +and a clear sense of the country's will? A little while ago he was a +Senator, and the supposition that the Executive alone has the national +point of view implies that a Senator has not that point of view. Mr. +Harding is chosen President and immediately upon his election by some +magic virtue of his office he is endowed with insight and imagination +which he did not possess as Senator. + +Mr. Harding is a good average President, a typical President, whether of +the United States or of a business corporation, just the kind of man to +put at the head of a going concern where a plodding kind of safeness is +required of the executive. We shall do well, should our standards of +public life remain what they are, if we have three Presidents superior +to Mr. Harding in energy or originality of mind, during the whole of the +coming century. But why should Mr. Harding understand or represent the +national point of view? + +Mr. Harding lived his life in the indolent comfortable mental +atmosphere of a small town. His horizon was narrow and there was no +force in him which made him seek to widen it. His public experience +before coming to Washington consisted of brief service in the Ohio State +legislature and a term as Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio. His service in +the Senate at Washington was short and it was beginner's work, +undertaken in the spirit of a man who finds the upper house a pleasant +place in which to pass the latter years of a never strenuous life. + +His point of view on national problems was a second-hand point of view. +He knew about them what his party had said about them, in its platforms, +on the stump, in the press. He accepted the accepted opinions. No magic +wrought by election to the Presidency could make of him or of anyone +else a great representative of the national purpose or endow him or +anyone else with deep understanding of national problems. + +Of recent Presidents Mr. Taft failed so completely to understand his +people and express its will that after four years in office he could +command the support of only two states when seeking re-election. Mr. +Wilson after four years had so far failed that only the incredible +stupidity of his opponents enabled him to succeed himself; and again so +far, that his second term ended in a tragedy. The floundering of Mr. +Harding is apparent to every eye. + +Only under two Presidents has the theory of executive domination of the +Government succeeded, and not completely under them. Congress rose +against Mr. Roosevelt in the last year or two of his administration. +Congress was not of Mr. Wilson's party, and was thus out of his control +in the last two years of his administration. Mr. Taft lacked the will to +rule. Mr. Harding is feebler than Mr. Taft, and party authority, one of +the pillars of executive power and responsibility, is now completely +broken down. A system which is successful only half the time cannot be +called workable. + +Let us examine the circumstances under which the Executive was able to +prevail over Congress and effect a limited sort of one man government. +They are not likely soon to repeat themselves. + +Mr. Roosevelt was an extraordinary personality. Only Andrew Jackson, +among our Presidents, was as picturesque as he, only Andrew Jackson had +a popular following comparable to his. + +Both of them represented strong democratic movements,--Jackson the +extrusion of the landed aristocracy, in favor of the masses, from their +preferred position in our political life; Mr. Roosevelt, the similar +extrusion of the business aristocracy, in favor of the masses from the +preferred position they had gained in our political life. Like +agitations of the political depths, finding expression in personalities +as unusual as those of Jackson and Roosevelt, will give us from time to +time executives who may carry everything before them; but only +emergencies like this and one other will make the President supreme. + +And even then it is easy to overstate the power of the Executive as it +was exercised by Mr. Roosevelt. The Colonel lived by picturesque +exaggeration. If he went to South America it was to discover a river and +find animals that the eye of man never rested on before or since. He +read more books than it was humanly possible to read and not become a +pallid bookworm. He pursued more interests than mere man can have. He +exercised daily as only a pugilist exercises briefly when in training. + +He had the gusto of the greatest amateur of all time and enjoyed the +immunity which is always granted to amateurs, that of never being +measured by professional standards. When you might have been noting a +weakness in one direction he was diverting you by an enormous exhibition +of versatility in another. He had the capacity of seeming, and the +semblance was never penetrated. He seemed to bestride Washington like a +Colossus. Actually his rule was one long compromise with Aldrich and +Cannon, the business leaders of Congress, which he represented as a +glorious triumph over them. + +One man government was developed much further under Mr. Wilson than +under Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harding's predecessor entered office as the +expression of that movement toward a government based on numbers rather +than on wealth, which the Colonel had so imperfectly effected. There had +been a reaction under Taft; there was a new determination under Wilson, +and a new concentration on the executive. + +Poor, bookish, without the friendships in the business world which Mr. +Roosevelt had had, having few contacts with life, Mr. Wilson embraced +the idea of putting business in its place passionately, where Mr. +Roosevelt played with it as he played with everything else. + +Mr. Wilson was by temperament an autocrat. An illustration of how +personal was his government was his treatment of his enemies. His +bitterness against Huntington Wilson, the Republican Ambassador to +Mexico, is well known. A year or two after the dispute was over, +Huntington Wilson's son came up for examination to enter the Consular +service. He passed at the top of the list. President Wilson heard of his +success and directed that he should receive no appointment. He carried +his enmity to the second generation. The law which would have given +young Mr. Wilson a place meant nothing under his personal government. + +As Anatole France says of Robespierre, he "_etait optimiste qui croyait +a la vertue_." Those who are "optimists and believe in virtue," remarks +the French author, end by killing men. Wilson in a revolution would have +conducted a Terror, as indeed during the war he did conduct a sort of +legal terror among pacifists and radicals. Roosevelt belonged to the +other school in the conduct of affairs which Anatole France praises +because it never forgets that men are "_des mauvais singes_." In a +revolution Roosevelt would have cut off no more heads than would be +necessary to make a good show. + +Moreover, when Mr. Wilson entered office his party had been long out of +power. Its leaders in the House and Senate were not firmly established. +Unlike Cannon and Aldrich, of the Roosevelt day, they did not represent +business in the national legislature. They had no authority except the +purely factitious authority created by the accident of seniority. They +were easily dominated from the White House. + +Coming into power at such a moment, possessing such a temperament, +representing such a popular movement, Mr. Wilson readily became the most +perfect example of the concentrated executive that we have yet had. But +even his one man government was attacked from the outset. His +personality proved repellent. An intellectual is so unfamiliar an object +in America as to seem almost a monstrosity, and his ascendancy would not +have lasted beyond two years if the war had not come. + +War is the other great cause that leads to autocracy in popular +governments. In times of common danger we revert to the herd with the +single leadership. We resort to the only form of rule of which we have +any experience in our daily lives, the only form in which the race has +yet developed any lasting faith. From the time when war threatened, with +the invasion of Belgium, till the time when it ended with the armistice, +Mr. Wilson became what any President may become under like +circumstances, what Mr. Wilson's temperament especially fitted him to +become--an absolute dictator. + +When we think of the powerful executive as the natural development of +the American system, imparting that unity to our government which the +makers of the Constitution in their zeal for checks and balances refused +to give it, we are over-impressed by the phenomena of Roosevelt and +Wilson and do not make sufficient allowances for the conditions which +made their power inevitable. So impossible is it for authority to remain +permanently in the hands of the executive that we are now witnessing its +spontaneous movement away from the White House--toward, well for the +moment I should say, toward nowhere. + +A distinguished alienist tells me that the desire for power over your +fellow man is an unmistakable sign of paranoia, not necessarily paranoia +amounting to insanity, but the same kind of paranoia which makes history +amusing. If that is true, then we are in an era of perfect sanity at +Washington. No one, no one, in the White House, in the Capitol, in Wall +Street, the capitol of business, or back among the home folks, as far +as I can learn, wants power--and responsibility. + +The picture I have drawn, quoting a bright young observer at the capital +of what happens when Business arrives in Washington is the picture of +our whole present national political organization. "A bunch of +tall-hatted fat boys comes. The governmental nose is thrust out awaiting +the guiding hand. The guiding hand is put unostentatiously behind the +back." It is the same when the organ of leading is extended from the +White House for the hand of leadership at the Capitol, or, as happens, +as often the organ of leading at the Capitol awaits the hand of +leadership at the White House. + +Power is in transition and we do much inconsistent thinking about where +it is and where it should be. We deliberately elected a weak executive, +to retrieve the blessed days of McKinley, the old equilibrium and +co-ordination of the equal and co-ordinate branches of our government. +Yet when things go badly in Congress, as they mostly do, the critics +exclaim that the President should be firm and "assert his authority" on +the hill. Mr. Harding himself said, over and over again, "This is no one +man job at Washington." Yet we read that his face assumes a "determined +expression"--I have myself never seen it--and he sends for the leaders +in Congress. + +We haven't executive domination and we haven't anything in its place. +We voted to go back to the nineties, but we haven't got there. There is +no Mark Hanna speaking for business and for party to make the system +work. We have the willessness of the blessed days in our National +Heartbreak House, but we haven't the will somewhere else to act and +direct. Not even seven million majority is enough to bring back the +past. In spite of "landslides" the course is always forward, and I use +"forward" not in the necessarily optimistic sense of those who were once +so sure of Progress. + +The initiative, so far as there is any, has passed to Congress. + +And so far as I can see, it is likely to remain with Congress, until +some new turn of events brings us back the strong executive. For, after +all, Congress chose Mr. Harding. The Senators picked him at Chicago. +With party bosses gone, they are about all that remains of the party, +and there is no reason why they should not go on naming Presidents. And +the power of presidents will not rise much above its source. + +The autocratic President goes inevitably the way its prototype the +autocrat went. The loins that produce them are sufficiently fertile. +Primogeniture brought forth feeble kings. The nominating system called +on for a great man every four years yields many feeble ones. There will +be many Hardings to one Roosevelt or Wilson. Party government which +might reinforce a feeble president is weak. Government by business has +lost its confidence and authority. The great discovery of the first +decade of this century for making this government of ours work is +already in the discard. + +So at a critical moment when government by Progress and government by +business have broken down, government by one man at Washington has also +gone. The war made the autocratic executive in the person of Mr. Wilson +intolerable. It also destroyed the basis for national concentration upon +the executive. + +We need a new picture in our heads of what government should be, what +its limits should be when it faces such vital problems as interfering +with God's time, and where its authority should center. We have none. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LOOKING FOR ULTIMATE WISDOM--IN THE BOSOM OF THERESE + + +We now pursue further the search for authority. We shall surely find +"divine right" somewhere, now that business has lost it. Someone +certainly has the final word about the pictures to put in our heads. Ah! +there is the public, the imputation of a miraculous quality to whose +opinion has a curious history. + +Everybody agrees that we owe most of the pleasant illusions upon which +this democracy of ours is based to Rousseau. This Swiss sentimentalist +about humanity, whose ideas have so profoundly affected the history of +the last century and a half, was a convinced believer that perfect good +sense resided in the bosom of the natural man, the man "born free and +equal" of our Declaration of Independence. + +Rousseau could find this simple wisdom which was his delight in the most +unexpected places. He describes his mistress Therese with whom he lived +many happy years: "Her mind is what nature has made it; cultivation is +without effect. I do not blush to avow that she has never known how to +read, although she writes passably. When I went to live in the Rue Neuve +des Petits Champs I had opposite my windows a clock face on which I +tried during several months to teach her to tell time. She can scarcely +do it even now. She has never known in their order the twelve months of +the year, and she does not know a single figure in spite of all the +pains I have taken to explain them to her.... But this person, so +limited and, if you wish, so stupid, has excellent judgment on occasions +of difficulty. Often in my troubles she has seen what I did not see +myself; she has given me the best advice to follow. She has pulled me +out of dangers into which I rushed blindly.... The heart of my Therese +was the heart of an angel. (_Le coeur de ma Therese etait celui d'un +ange._)" + +It would be amusing to trace our belief in the good sense of man, in the +wisdom and justice of public opinion, back to a philosopher's delight in +a female moron; but that would be too great a paradox for a serious +discussion of today's crisis in popular government. The truth probably +is that Rousseau reached _a priori_ the conclusions about the sound +sense of the simple and natural man that captivated a society so simple +and natural as our own was in the eighteenth century, and then stumbled +upon such convincing evidence in the person of Therese that he had to +keep it by him all the rest of his days. + +And where after all has there been found any better evidence for our +belief in the soundness and justice of public opinion than was furnished +by the unlettered and unteachable Therese, who had "le coeur d'un ange" +and "devant les dames du plus haut rang, devant les grands et les +princes, ses sentiments, son bon sens, ses reponses et sa conduite lui +out tire l'estime universelle"? + +To accept the doctrine of the rightness of public opinion you must +believe that there resides in every man, even in the most unpromising +man, of the mental level of Therese, "si bornee et, si l'on veut, si +stupide," the capacity to be, like her, "d'un conseil excellent dans les +occasions difficiles." + +The doctrine of the rightness of public opinion, however, never required +proof. It was a political necessity. The world at the time when modern +democracies had their birth accepted government only because it rested +upon divine right. The government of men by mere men has always been +intolerable. + +The new democracies which were to take the place of the old kingdoms had +to have some sanction other than the suffrages of the people. Room had +to be found in them somewhere for divine right. Those who established +the modern system could never have sold self-government to the people as +self government. There had to be some miracle about it, something +supernatural, like that marvel which turned a mere man into a King and +gave him that power of healing by touch which was exercised in Galilee, +so that the laying on of his hands cured the king's evil. + +The miracle was accomplished somewhere in the process through which your +opinion and my opinion and Therese's opinion became public opinion. Just +as the anointment or the coronation turned a mere human being by a +miracle into the chosen of God ruling by divine right, so by some +transmutation which does not take place before the eyes, mere human +opinion becomes itself the choice of God, ruling by divine right. + +If you doubt that the founders of modern democracy had to carry over +into their systems the old illusions about divine right, read what +Thomas Jefferson, more or less a free thinker, quoted by Mr. Walter +Lippmann in his _Public Opinion_, has to say about the divine basis for +popular government: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people +of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His +peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in +which He keeps alive that sacred fire which might otherwise escape from +the earth." + +That "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue" was public opinion. +Nothing was lost of the sanctions of monarchic government when we +changed to popular government. + +Since the days of Jefferson we have ceased to be an agricultural people +and we can no longer derive the authority of our government from the +Rousseauist notion that the farmer, being near to nature, thrusting his +hands into the soil, was the choice of God and ruled by a kind of divine +right. But "aucune religion n'est jamais morte, ni ne mourra jamais." + +Let us examine the doctrine of Jefferson. Public opinion ruled by divine +right because, in this country and in his day, it was the opinion of +farmers, who were "the chosen people of God whose breasts He has made +the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." + +When we ceased to be a nation of farmers did we abandon the basis of our +government in divine right? Not in the least. We broadened our ground to +cover the added elements of the community and went along further with +Rousseau than Jefferson had need to do; we said that the breasts of all +men "He has made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine +virtue." The art of uncovering their substantial and genuine virtue, +this quality in Therese which drew down upon her universal esteem for +her good sense and her sound sentiments, is the art of arriving at +public opinion. + +The legend of public opinion is thus accounted for; first, you will +observe, it was politically necessary to assert the inspiration of +public opinion, for divine right had to reside somewhere. Second, in a +democracy the press and public men had to flatter the mass of voters and +readers by declaring on every possible occasion that wisdom reposed in +their breasts. And third, the public mind differed so from the ordinary +thinking mind that, to put its conclusions in a favorable light, men had +to assume some supernatural quality, some divine "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue." + +The public did not think, in the ordinary sense, yet its decisions were +more right than the carefully elaborated decisions of those who did +think; the wonder of Therese over again, who "si bornee et si stupide" +gave such excellent advice on difficult occasions. No processes by which +results were reached could be perceived by the trained mind. The mystery +of the public mind was as great as the mystery of intuitions is to the +logical or the mystery of poetry is to the prosaic. Clearly, a miracle; +clearly, a deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. + +When modern democracy got its start, kings by their folly had shaken +faith in their divine right. In a similar way at this moment, public +opinion by its excesses has made men question whether any "deposit for +substantial and genuine virtue" has been placed in human breasts upon +which states may rely for justice and wisdom. + +Walter Lippmann's book, _Public Opinion_, with its destructive analysis +of the public mind, is a symptom of those doubts with which the war has +left us. The years from 1914 on furnished the most perfect exhibition of +public opinion and its workings that the world has ever seen. You saw on +a grand scale its miraculous capacity for instant formation and, if you +are sufficiently detached now, you look back and doubt whether what was +revealed was a "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." + +Both sides to the conflict resembled nothing so much as prehistoric +tribes meeting accidentally in the night and, precipitated into panic, +fighting in the belief that each was being attacked by the other. + +Public opinion in France and England felt that the war was defensive. +Public opinion in Germany was equally sure that Germany was only +defending herself. Either the German Therese or the French Therese and +the English Therese and the American Therese must have been wrong. The +fight could not have been defensive on both sides. And if Therese is +ever so wrong as this, the whole case of the divine rightness of public +opinion falls. + +And not only do we know that some Therese, perhaps all the Thereses, +made a mistake in this instance, but we have come to feel that whenever +danger arises Therese is inevitably wrong; her mind, such as it is, +closes up and she fails to show those _sentiments_ and that _bon sens_ +which drew down the applause of the princes and the persons _du haut +rang_ who have been praising the deposit of virtue that she carries in +her breast. + +We have watched the course of Therese confronted by other and smaller +fears since the close of the war, and we have reached the conclusion +that Therese always reacts a certain way. In that large range of +situations which may be artfully presented to her simple mind as perils +she is no longer _d'un conseil excellent_; her heart _d'un ange_ +hardens; she abandons her babies quite unfeelingly at the hospital of +the _Nouveaux Nes_. + +Therefore you do not reach the "deposit for virtue" by simply employing +an intelligence unencumbered by mental processes. You must at least +assure that intelligence against fear, a serious limitation upon the +doctrine of an infallible public opinion. + +Students of public opinion will for a long time go back to the period of +the war for their materials. Opinion was then unmistakable. The methods +by which it was formed were clear. In times of great peril men throw off +their polite disguises and are frank; so too are institutions. + +The making of opinion became an official function in which we all +co-operated. We bound ourselves voluntarily not to publish and not to +regard any information inconsistent with the state of mind which it was +deemed expedient to create and maintain. We probably always in the +forming of opinion tacitly impose voluntary censorships, but they are +so habitual, so unconscious, so covered with traditional hypocrisy, that +it is difficult to bring them into the light. + +Conscious self-deception to the good end of keeping ourselves united and +determined was during the war a great virtue. Playing upon prejudice, +rousing the depths of the primitive mind in man, was a laudable act of +patriotism. + +What happened then was only an exaggeration of what happens all the +time, for war makes no new contributions to the art of self-government. +In war we merely throw off the restraints of peace and impose others +which operate in the reverse direction. In peace we are shamefaced about +direct killing; in war we brag of it. In peace we are shamefaced about +manufacturing public opinion; in war it is our patriotic duty. + +No, war has made us rather doubtful about Therese. After all Rousseau +was a prejudiced witness. When you take to your bosom a lady who cannot +learn to tell time by the clock, you have to make out a case for her--or +for yourself. When like Jefferson and his successors you take to your +bosom the public, you have to make out a case for it, for the deposit +for substantial and genuine virtue that you rely upon. + +The war revealed at once the immense power and the immense dangers of +public opinion when its full force is aroused and one hundred million +people come to think--thinking is not the word--to feel, as one man. +Minorities, the great corrective in democracy, disappeared. They had +their choice of going to jail or bowing to the general will. + +Few realized this alternative, so irresistible was the mob impulse, +awakened by the sense of common danger, even to individuals ordinarily +capable of maintaining their detachment. The primitive instinct of +self-preservation subdued all capacity for independent thinking, so that +one who has ordinarily the habit of making up his own mind, a most +difficult habit to maintain in modern society, can not look back on +himself during the war without a sense of shame. Romain Rolland, in +_Clerambeault_, pictures the devastating effect of public opinion at its +mightiest upon the individual conscience. + +The mechanism by which this state of mind was created was unconcealed. +The government reserved to itself the right to suppress truth or to put +out untruth for the common good. Private organizations of endless number +co-operated to this laudable end. The press submitted itself to a +voluntary censorship, passing the responsibility for what it printed +over to society whose general end of maintaining unity for the real or +imaginary necessities of self-defense it served. A lynch law of opinion +was established by common consent. + +What went on during the war goes on, though less openly and less +formidably, all of the time. Everyone realizes the immense power of +public opinion. Many seek to direct its formation. The government +conducts all of the time a vast propaganda, always with a certain favor +of the press. + +We submit always to a certain voluntary censorship, not so conscious as +that which existed during the war but none the less real. We receive +upon the whole the information which is good for us to receive. We are +all a little afraid of public opinion, its tyranny, its excesses, its +blind tendencies. We do not find it, as Jefferson thought we should, a +"deposit for substantial and genuine virtue," and we are all more or +less consciously trying to make it one; that is the process of rendering +modern democracy workable; but we may not be all unprejudiced about what +the deposit should be or scrupulous about the means of improving it. + +The part which the press plays in this process is peculiar. When editors +or correspondents meet together the speaker addresses them invariably +as, "You makers of public opinion," but the last responsibility which +journalism cares to assume is the making of public opinion. + +This disinclination began with the exclusion of the editor's opinion +from the news columns. Gradually, it extended to the exclusion of his +opinion from the editorial pages and finally to its exclusion from his +own mind. I am speaking only of tendencies, not of their complete +realization, for there are notable exceptions among the greater dailies +of this country. + +This movement is at its strongest in the nation's capital, for official +Washington likes to live in an intellectual vacuum, and journalism +strives successfully to please. With the world crashing about his ears +the editor of the _Star_, the best newspaper in the capital, finds this +to say: + +"The Crown Prince of Japan and the Prince of Wales are young men +destined for great parts in world affairs. They are now qualifying for +their work. + +"Last year the former took his first look around in the occidental +world. He was everywhere most cordially received, and returned home +informed and refreshed by what he had seen and heard. His vision, +necessarily, was considerably enlarged. + +"The latter is now taking his first look around in the oriental world. +In a few days he will land in Japan and be the guest of the country for +a month. The arrangements for his entertainment are elaborate, and +insure him with a delightful and a profitable visit. That he will return +home informed and refreshed by his travels is certain. + +"The war has produced a new world, which in many things must be ordered +in new ways. Young men for action; and here are two young men who when +they get into action and into their stride will be prominent and +important in the world picture." + +But if a newspaper rigidly excludes its editor's opinions from its +columns, it is singularly hospitable to all other opinions. The +President twice a week may edit the papers of the entire country, or Mr. +Hughes may do it every day,--or Mr. Hoover or Mr. Daugherty for that +matter, even having extended to him the privilege of anonymity which +editors used to keep to themselves, as a device for giving force and +effect to their ideas. + +The President "sees the press" Tuesdays and Fridays, volunteering +information or answering questions. Mr. Hughes holds daily receptions. +Everyone else big enough to break into print follows the same practice. + +A curious modesty prevails. Every public man loves to see his name in +the newspapers, yet no one of them at these conferences will assume +responsibility for what he says. All of them resort to the editorial +practice of anonymity. + +The rule is that the correspondents must not quote Mr. Harding or Mr. +Hughes or anyone else. + +They must not write "Mr. Harding said" or "Mr. Hughes said." They must +print what Mr. Harding or Mr. Hughes said as a fact; that is, they must +put the authority of their paper behind it or, if they doubt, they must +assign for it "a high authority," thus putting the authority of their +paper behind it at one remove. + +The editor, having excluded his own opinions from his news columns, +opens his news columns to Mr. Harding's or Mr. Hughes's opinions, giving +no guide to the reader whether he is printing fact or opinion, and, if +obviously opinion, as to whose opinion it is. + +The rule is, nothing but news in the news column. The news is, "Mr. +Harding said so and so." But what is printed is, "so and so is a fact" +or, "so and so the paper believes on unimpeachable authority to be a +fact." + +This official control of news columns goes further. Not only, according +to the rules, must the source of certain information be regarded as a +confidence but essential facts themselves may not be disclosed. + +One of the most remarkable uses of the news columns to create public +opinion was that of Attorney-General Palmer whose several announcements +of red revolution in the United States startled the country two years +ago. A series of sensational plots was described. Very soon every +intelligent correspondent felt sure that Mr. Palmer was largely +propaganding. But to say so would have been to violate that law against +the expression of opinion in news columns, so essential to the truth and +accuracy of our press. Moreover, if my memory is correct, somewhere in +the series the Attorney-General told the press, in confidence, that he +was putting forth his stories of revolution for a purpose. But one does +not print confidences. + +In this case the news was that Attorney-General Palmer was issuing +stories of discovered revolutionary plots to combat a certain radicalism +in the labor movement. As printed it was that Attorney-General Palmer +said--he permitted his name to be used--that he had discovered +revolutionary plots. + +But the uncritical reader does not ask himself whether the +Attorney-General may not be lying. And even if he were inclined to do so +the headline throws him off his guard, for in the limited space +available for captions, mere assertions tend to become facts. As it +reached the reader's mind the fact that Mr. Palmer was avowedly issuing +propaganda became the fact that evidences of a great Bolshevist plot +against our institutions were being discovered almost daily. + +There are disadvantages in the official editing of news columns. The +official does not always escape by shifting responsibility to the +editor. The British during the Washington Conference introduced an +improvement. They put out propaganda which had no authority at all. This +the newspapers either had to leave out or to print on their own +authority. + +Lord Riddell had "no official connection with the British delegation." +He had moreover a perfect alibi. There was Sir Arthur Willert, the +official spokesman, who knew nothing and told nothing. Riddell's was a +private enterprise. He was just a journalist willing to share with +other journalists what information he collected. Just a journalist? +Well, it was true that "Lloyd George had asked him to stay on" when he +was on the point of departing. But that was a confidence and under the +rules the press does not print confidences. + +Riddell's disclosures were perfectly timed. The best of them came out in +the morning when afternoon correspondents must either rush them through +as facts--they could not even say "on the highest authority"--or explain +to their editors why they had been beaten by their rivals. + +Riddell is one of the British Premier's intimates. A lawyer turned +newspaper proprietor, he brings out the _News of the World_, a London +Sunday publication, sensational and trashy, of which 3,500,000 copies or +some such preposterous number are sold. He started in during the war as +a spokesman for the British Premier. He kept it up at the Paris +Conference. And at Washington he scored his greatest success. + +What he had said at his seance was, "Now, of course, I don't know, but I +imagine the Conference will do thus and so." He was delightfully +irresponsible, having no official connection. He could leak when he had +anything to leak. He could guess, near the truth or far from the truth, +for, after all, he was only "imagining." He joked. He indulged in +buffoonery. He put out propaganda when he wished. But he mixed enough +truth with it all so that the correspondents thronged his meetings. So +far as there was publicity at the Conference, he was that publicity. + +There was nothing of the great man about him. He did not pretend to be a +statesman. He did not take himself seriously. He reached out for his +public in the same undress way that he does in his Sunday newspaper. +"Ex-tra-ter-ri-to-ri-al-ity," he would say, "that's a long word. I never +heard it before I came here." "Kow Loon, where is the place anyway?" You +felt that for the British Empire these places and issues were +trivialities. + +He was familiar, quite inoffensively. "The highly intelligent seal of +the Associated Press--was it Mr. Hood here?--must have been under the +table in the committee room when he got this story. He knows more about +it than I do." He was humorous. "The Conference means to do good and, +according to the well known rule--what is it?--Oh, yes! 'Cast your bread +upon the waters'--and by--er--a certain repercussion we all expect to +benefit." + +It was not said cynically. It was no effort to be funny. It was natural +and inevitable. Lord Riddell himself did good to the press, and by a +certain repercussion the British Empire benefited. It was a publicity +"stunt" that has never been equalled. Never before did one man have +world opinion so much in his hands. Only Riddell's personality, his +friendliness, his apparent disingenuousness, his trifling, enabled him +to exercise his power--these and the immense demand for publicity, where +aside from his there was little. + +[Illustration: LORD RIDDELL] + +The hospitality of news columns is not extended to officials alone. A +vast industry second only to that of news collecting has been built up +for the purpose of conveying opinions to readers in the guise of news. +Its constant growth is a proof of its success. + +The reason for the opening of newspaper columns to it is commercial. A +variety of interests and opinions tends to reflect itself, as at Paris, +in a multiplicity of newspapers. The American newspaper proprietor has +avoided competition by steadily restricting the expression of opinion +first in the news columns and then on the editorial page, so as to +offend as few of his readers as possible, and then opening his news +columns to opinions which he could not approve on his editorial page, +provided they could be disguised as news. + +But the faults of public opinion as a governing force do not spring from +an uncritical journalism, conducted in haste and under compulsion to be +interesting rather than adequate, too little edited by its editors and +too much edited by others. The trouble with Therese is her lack of mind. +In spite of her good sense and habit of giving excellent advice she is +_bornee et, si l'on veut, stupide_. We do not find in her what +Rousseau was convinced he found in her, "a deposit for substantial and +genuine virtue." + +We know more about the public mind today than Jefferson did when he +wrote about it. We have studied the psychology of the mob and we know +that the psychology of the public is not different. Like the mind of +Therese, the public mind has never grown up; with this difference, that +the mind of Therese never could grow up and the mind of the public, we +hope, will. + +The public mind is young. Only for a very few years in the history of +the race has there been any such thing as a conscious public. Jefferson +was right in thinking that its mind was not the sum of the individual +minds: nevertheless, it is not a "deposit for virtue." Men act in a mass +quite differently from the way they act as individuals, only +unfortunately there is not any necessary divine rightness about the way +they act: there is often divine wrongness. + +We have built up the machinery for converting one hundred million widely +scattered people into a public, for giving it a sense of community, but +we have not at an equal rate built up a public mind. + +With the telegraph, the wireless telephone, the standardized press, the +instant bulletin going everywhere, we can stir the whole people as a +mob, make it revert into a frightened herd, but we can not make it +think. + +The public is too young to have a developed mind. In a hundred +generations it may have one. + +This experiment in democracy is conducted in the faith that it will have +one, that the mass of mankind may be lifted up so that there will be as +much freedom of thinking in a democratic society as there once was in an +aristocratic society. It is the bravest experiment in history but its +success is afar off, Rousseau's belief in Therese to the contrary +notwithstanding. + +In the present state of undeveloped mind and overdeveloped machinery of +communication public opinion is a great negative force. It does nothing +constructive. It can only be thoroughly aroused by a suggestion of +danger. Statesmen are both afraid of it and despise it, and between +contempt and fear are reduced to temporary expedients. + +So that when we speak of government by public opinion we speak of +something that has been as badly shaken as government by business, or +executive government or party government or any one of the various +governments upon which we once relied. The war has made it almost as +intolerable as it made autocracy, as practiced by Mr. Wilson. + +Shall official Washington turn to public opinion as its guide? Official +Washington is busy all the time with all the arts it used during the war +shaping public opinion to its own ends. It must have been hard for a +king's minister to believe in the divinity of the monarch he was +gulling. And at any moment public opinion may belong to Mr. Hearst. + +This new ruler by divine right is not going to be so easy to dethrone as +his predecessors. No new Rousseau will discern a new Therese. Mr. Walter +Lippmann would set up in its place the expert by divine right, but the +expert is a palpable pretender. + +The best hope for the present moment is perhaps to divide the public. +Minorities based on interest will at least be constructive. Organized, +they may offer an effective resistance. Out of them may come a +development of the public mind. + +If Jefferson were writing today he might say that the farm bloc +contained the "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." At any rate +it tills the soil. + +If we break up the threatening mass which the war has taught us to fear, +there might be organized a thinkers' bloc. Thinking in this country +certainly needs a bloc. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHALL WE FIND OUR SALVATION SITTING, LIKE MR. MELLON, ON A PILE OF +DOLLARS + + +The conditions which face Mr. Harding are like those which face the +administrator of a corporation left by its old head and creator to the +direction of an incompetent son. The young man is the nominal master of +the business. He lacks confidence in himself and what is worse still his +wife and mother lack confidence in him. They have fortified him with a +brother-in-law as a right hand man. His brother-in-law knows little of +the business and can never forget that he is the creature of his sister +and her mother-in-law. + +The administrator of this corporation wishes to obtain a decision upon +policy. The proprieties require him to consult its nominal head. The +young man, unsure of himself, must talk it over with the mentor whom his +wife and mother have provided. He in turn proves no final authority but +must discuss the question with his sister. Ultimately the widow who owns +most of the stock must be approached. She hires others to run the +property, wonders why they do not run it. The very fact that the others +could reach no decision makes her cautious about reaching one herself. +The administrator goes vainly about this circle seeking for a "yes" or +"no." + +The government was simple when the public had faith in the social +purposes of business and public opinion did not differ greatly from +business opinion. Parties reflected the will of business. Authority was +centered. Whether you said it resided in parties or in business or in +public opinion made little difference. There was substantial agreement. +A "yes" or "no" was easy. + +Suppose Mr. Harding should be in doubt, as he is so often--today. He +asks himself what is party opinion, what is business opinion, what is +public opinion, or what is the opinion of some powerful minority which +may turn an election against him. + +His party has no opinion; it exists by virtue of its capacity to think +nothing about everything and thus avoid dissensions. Business is of two +minds and is moreover afraid of the public. It will assume no +responsibility. Public opinion, what is it? Mr. Hearst's newspapers? Or +the rest of the press? Or the product of the propaganda conducted from +Washington? Or something that Mr. Harding may create himself if he will? +Minority opinion is definite, but is it safe? Where is authority? + +A return to those happy days when authority did center somewhere, when +in conducting the business you did not have to run around the whole +circle seeing the young man, his wife, his brother-in-law, and the widow +who inherited the property, is our constant dream. Let us get back to +party government, exclaimed Mr. Harding; so the nation voted to do so, +only to find there were neither parties nor party government. + +Let us, then, it is suggested, found some new party that will "stand for +something," that will synthesize in one social aim, the common element +in the aims of various interests into which the country is divided. But +no one can point out the common basis, the principle which the new party +shall advocate. + +Let us then have a better informed public opinion. Mr. Walter Lippmann +in his new book upon the subject, despairing of the press, would put the +making of public opinion in the hands of experts, collecting the truth +with the impartiality of science. + +We seek unity as perhaps the builders of Babel sought it after the +confusion of tongues fell upon them. + +One favorite hope of attaining it is through a new synthesis of business +and politics. Government by business had worked. Let us return to Eden. +Let us elect a business man President. One may substitute for President +in this last sentence Governor or Mayor or Senator or Congressman, for +whatever the office is, this recipe is always suggested. + +Thus, so it is piously hoped, we may get back to those good old times +before we builded for ourselves this Babel, a government that was +independent of business, parties that were independent of everything +under the sun, voters that were independent of parties, a press that was +independent, a propaganda that was independent, and blocs that knew no +rule but their own. + +Elect the business man to office, so it is felt, and you will have an +important synthesis, an old and tried one, one that worked, business and +politics. You will do more. You will import into public life all that +wonderful efficiency which we read about in the _American Magazine_, +that will to power, that habit of getting things done, that instant +capacity for decision which we romantically associate with commercial +life. All this is in the minds of those who urge this method of +achieving unity. + +We have no greater national illusion than the business man illusion. In +any other country a business man is just a business man; in America he +is a demigod. Golden words, as Mark Twain said, flow out of his mouth. +He performs miracles. He has erected a great industry and amassed a +large fortune. Therefore he would make a great public official. We never +think of him as merely a specialist having a narrow aptitude for heaping +up money. + +The reasoning about the business man is this. Success, real success, +comes to the jack of all trades, a major premise handed down from +pioneer days. "A" is a real success, for he has made several millions. +Therefore "A" is a jack of all trades. Therefore he would be as great a +President as he is a shoe button manufacturer. + +We owe the business-man illusion to the pioneers. In a few years they +subjected a continent to our uses. They accumulated for themselves +wealth such as the world had never seen. The nation does not think of +them as the luckiest of a generation facing such virgin resources as +existed on no other continent, at a moment when means of transportation +such as the world had never seen before, and machinery for manufacture +without parallel were in their hands. The marvelous element was not the +opportunity but the men. + +One day they were telegraphers, day laborers, railroad section hands and +the next they were colossal figures of American enterprise. As their +like existed nowhere else they became the American type. They +established the tradition of American business. + +It has been a tradition profitable to keep alive. The men who by luck, +by picking other men's wits, or by the possession of a special talent, +useful only in a society like our own, grow vastly rich, love to read +how wonderful they are. For their delectation a journalism has grown up +to celebrate the epic of their marvelous industry, resourcefulness, +efficiency, their god-like insight into the hearts of men; whose praises +they pay for liberally in the disposition of advertising. Young men who +would be great read this journalism diligently looking for the secret of +success. Reading it they resolve not to keep their minds upon five +o'clock when the closing whistle blows but to become rich by industry +and thrift like its great exemplars; who profit by it not only in having +their own praises sung but in getting more work out of their servants. + +So much virtue rests upon the business-man illusion that no one would +lay an impious finger on it. I merely analyze it to exhibit the contents +of our minds when we say "elect a business man President," and to +present the picture of a demigod out of the _American Magazine_ in the +White House, and a new synthesis of business and politics. + +Moreover, we let ourselves be misled by the habit of speaking of the +"public business" and accepting without examination the analogy which +the word suggests. We say to ourselves, "Well, since government is a +business, the proper person to be in charge of it is a business man." +But it is not business in any exact sense of the word. If the product of +the operation were a mere bookkeeping profit or even mere bookkeeping +economies then it might properly be called a business. But that which +business efficiency in office, if it could really be obtained, might do +well, is the least part of self-government, whose main end must for a +long time be the steady building up of the democratic ideal. + +But the electing of business men to office does not build up this ideal. +On the contrary it is a confession of failure in democracy, an admission +that public life in it does not develop men fit for its tasks, that for +capacity it is necessary to seek in another world and summon an +outsider; establish a sort of receivership in self-government. + +And it is a blind sort of receivership. We know little about business +men except the noisy disclosures of their press agents. "X" has made a +million dollars. If we no longer say, as in the days of Mark Twain, that +golden words flow from his mouth, we accept his wealth as proof positive +of his extraordinary capacity for affairs. There is no going behind the +fact of his vast accumulation, for business is conducted in secret. The +law recognizes that it has to be, keeping in confidence facts disclosed +through income tax returns. + +When we consider a successful business man for office no allowance can +be made for the fact that the intelligence responsible for his success +may not have been his as head of a successful organization. In no way +may it be asked and answered whether all the original force which was in +him may not have been spent before he is suggested for office. Senator +Knox was an instance of spent force, his energy and ambition being gone +when he entered public life. + +Luck may explain a commercial career and you cannot elect luck to +office. Special talents which are valuable in making money may be out of +place in political life. + +Moreover commercial success in America has been easier than anywhere +else in the world. Opportunities are numerous with the result that +competition has not been keen. Nothing has been so over praised or so +blindly praised as business success in this country. We may occasionally +elect men in public life to office upon false reputations, as we did +Vice-President Coolidge, crediting him with a firmness toward the Boston +police strikers which had been shown by a subordinate in his absence. +But at least the acts of officials are subject to popular scrutiny. +Behind success in business we may not look. + +Take the case of a Middle Western corporation. Three quarters of its +profits came from a subsidiary. The history of the subsidiary is this: +The corporation came into possession of certain mineral lands through +the foreclosure of a mortgage. A company developing a product from the +mineral failed. The head of the corporation acquiring the property by +foreclosure thought this product of little value. A subordinate felt +that it could by a change of name and judicious advertising be widely +sold. He had great difficulty in persuading his employer but in the end +obtained the money to make his experiment, whose results fully justified +his judgment. The public seeking a business man for office would look no +further than at the success of the corporation, which would be proof +sufficient of the great talents of its head. Electing him they would not +obtain for public service the mind which made the money, even if it be +agreed that the talent for making money is a talent for public service. + +And this case: A great Eastern trust acquired possession of a piece of +property in this way: It uses a mineral product not much found in this +country. Some Westerners had a deposit. They went to the Eastern trust, +which encouraged them and loaned them $10,000 for its development. They +then found that the trust was the only market for the mineral and that +it had no intention to buy. Ultimately this deposit passed to the trust +by foreclosure of the $10,000 mortgage. The trust thus obtaining +ownership, began mining and in the first year cleared $500,000 on its +$10,000 investment. The transaction in this instance was not the work of +a subordinate; it revealed, however, a peculiar talent in the head of +the corporation that would not be serviceable in public life. + +To get down to names. Many business men entered the service of the +government during the war. Almost none of them left it with enhanced +reputations. Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, who served in the Treasury +Department, had little success, so the men who surrounded him felt. I am +not able to assess the causes of his failure. Perhaps he had assigned to +him an impossible task. + +Similarly men who had contact with him while financing the Republican +campaign of 1916 were disappointed. After his service at Washington he +ceased to be head of a great Wall Street bank. What do these adverse +circumstances mean regarding Mr. Vanderlip's fitness to be, let us say, +Secretary of the Treasury? Precisely nothing, let us admit. And his +success for a number of years in banking, the large fortune he +accumulated, by the same reasoning, mean no more. + +Mr. Vanderlip is one of our best known business men, yet what the public +knows about him is nothing. He was the president of a great bank and +amassed wealth. An old financial journalist, he has gift of speech and +writing, unusual in the business world. His agreeable personality made +him liked by editors. He achieved unusual publicity. Was his reputation +solidly based or was it newspaper made? The public does not know, cannot +know. I use his case by way of illustration. Perhaps he ought to be +President of the United States. But choosing a man for office on the +basis of his business success, even so well known a man as Mr. +Vanderlip, is plainly enough blind gambling. + +We have in office now one of the great business men of the country. Mr. +Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, who is posed somewhat +uneasily upon what is, many say, the highest pile of wealth any one has +ever heaped up, except Mr. John D. Rockefeller. I say "somewhat +uneasily" because I have in mind Mr. Mellon emerging from a +Congressional hearing at the Capitol, flustered and uncomfortable, +turning to a subordinate and asking anxiously, "Well, did I make a good +impression?" What could a subordinate reply except, "Yes, Mr. Mellon, +you did very well."? + +But Mr. Mellon does not make a good impression on the witness stand. If +he were unjustly accused of a crime he would hang himself by appearing +in his own defense, unless the jury sensed in his stammering hesitancy +not guilt but an honest inability to express himself. + +Mr. Mellon is the shyest and most awkward man who ever rose to power. He +is unhappy before Congressional committees, before reporters in the +dreadful conferences which are the outward and visible evidence of our +democracy, at Cabinet meetings, where the fluent Mr. Hughes casts him +terribly in the shade. + +At one such meeting the President dragged him forth from silence by +turning to him and asking him, "What has the Sphinx here got to say on +the subject." Thus impelled, the Secretary of the Treasury replied, +unconsciously in the words of Sir Roger de Coverley, "Well, Mr. +President, I think there is a good deal to be said on both sides." + +If we may believe the psychologists, the great object of acquiring +wealth and power is the achievement of self-complacency. If it is, Mr. +Mellon has somehow missed it. You can not imagine him writing himself +down beside the others in the great American copy book and saying +seriously to the youth of the land, "Look at me, I worked always fifteen +minutes after the whistle blew and behold the result. Follow my +footsteps." No golden words issue from his mouth. Some unforgetable +personal measure of his own deserts, some standard peculiar to himself, +perhaps, refuses to be buried under the vast accumulations. + +Were ever great abilities so tongue-tied as this? I ask this question +not to answer it. I merely hold Mr. Mellon up as the usually insoluble +riddle, the why of great business success. But granting that the real +Mr. Mellon is shown in the enormous fortune and not in the timid asking +of a subordinate, "Did I make a good impression?" does such shrinking, +such ill adaptation, on the stage of public life make a contribution to +the unending drama of self-government? + +[Illustration: ANDREW W. MELLON, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY] + +I take it that behind these footlights which we call Washington, just as +behind the literal footlights, the actors, if there is to be any lifting +of us up, must play a part with which we can identify ourselves in our +imagination. He must be articulate. He must get across. Mr. Harding +does it admirably. You watch him and you realize that he is the oldest +of stage heroes, Everyman. You say to yourself unconsciously, "Only the +accident of seven million majority separates him from me." You are +lifted up. Ordinary flesh and blood can do this great thing. + +Based on this desire to identify ourselves with greatness is our +familiar aphorism, "The office makes the man." All that is necessary is +the office to "make" the least of us. + +Roosevelt played the part even better than Mr. Harding, "an ordinary man +raised to the nth power." He strutted to fill the eye. He was the +consummation of articulateness. The point is that self-government must +be dramatic or it does not carry along the self-governors. + +Of course one must not overlook the fact that "the great silent man" is +a consolation to common inarticulateness and ineffectiveness, the +general belief that where there is a slow tongue profundity is found +being one of those pleasant things which we like to think about +ourselves--"we could and we would." But after all there is a sense of +pity about our kind attribution of hidden power to dullness. We are half +aware that we are compensating. + +Anyway, even if the great business man is at home upon the stage, which +Mr. Mellon is not, the calling of him to office interrupts the drama of +self-government. We admit our failure and call in the gods from another +world. It is as I have said a staged receivership. We can not identify +ourselves with the hero. We are poor worms, not millionaires. We might +have the seven million majority but we could not also stand upon a pile +of seven million gold dollars. Government ceases to be human. It becomes +superhuman. And self-government must be human. + +Of course, I exaggerate. Mr. Mellon coming from that other world is not +wholly without his human relations. I have alluded to his symbolizing +the wish-fulfilment of the inarticulate, and the inarticulate are many. +He does more. He fits admirably into what Mr. Walter Lippmann has called +in his new book one of our popular stereotypes. We demand a conflict +between reality and the stage. We like to see the masks pulled off our +actors. One of our best received traditions is that a man who has a +fight with the politicians has performed a great service. We like to see +our strutters strut in a little fear of us. + +But Secretary Mellon's defeat of Representative Fordney, Senator Elkins, +and Elmer Dover in their efforts to fill his department with politicians +was not so much a sign of power as a measure of the difference between +Mr. Mellon's world and theirs. + +Mr. Mellon comes into the Treasury from his bank. All he knows is +banking, not politics. If he went from the Mellon Bank to the National +City Bank of New York he would not discharge all the National City Bank +employees and bring in a lot of men who had never seen the inside of a +bank before, whom he did not know, who didn't speak the same language +that he did. It is only in politics that one finds such perfect faith in +man as man. + +He goes to one young Democrat in the Department--this actually +happened--and he says, "Young man, I like your work. I want you to stay +with me," "Ah, but, Mr. Mellon, I can't," plead this Democrat, "You +really can't do things that way. It is not done. You will have all the +Republican politicians about your ears." + +But it was not a sense of power in Mr. Mellon that made him thus defy +the conventions. It was merely the instinct of self-protection. He could +not live in the atmosphere of politics. He had to do things as he always +had done them. The Gods coming down from high Olympus among the sons and +daughters of men were probably never as much at ease as the Greeks made +them out to be. + +With his millions behind him Mr. Mellon was a solid object in his +conflict with the politicians. Without them one does not know what would +have happened between him and Mr. Fordney, Mr. Elkins, and Mr. Dover. + +What is a good Secretary of the Treasury? We have a stereotype about +that, too, one slowly and painfully formed. A good Secretary of the +Treasury is one who has seen the inside of a bank, who has read the +books on finance and knows the rules. Originally our Secretaries of the +Treasury were amateurs, like our generals who beat ploughshares into +swords. When one got into trouble, he boarded the Congressional Limited +for New York and saw Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan came out of his bank holding +the safety of the nation in his hands, exhibiting it to reporters who +wrote all about it, assuring the public. + +At length it was decided to keep the safety of the nation at Washington. +And our Secretaries of the Treasury tended to become professional. The +young men who tell us whether we have a good Secretary of the Treasury +or not are the financial writers of the newspapers. The Secretary acts. +The young men look in the books and see that he has conformed to the +rules. When he has he leaves nothing to be desired as Secretary. + +Mr. Mellon's relation to Alexander Hamilton is the same as Marshal +Foch's relation to Napoleon; one knew war from his own head, the other +knows it from the teachers. Mr. Mellon's administration is not inspired. +In the greatest financial crisis in our history he has no constructive +suggestion to make. You would hardly know that Secretary Houston was +gone and Mr. Mellon had come. And there is an explanation for this +continuity, beside that of the rule books. The hard work of the +Department has been done under both administrations by Assistant +Secretary S. P. Gilbert, for Mr. Mellon has the successful man's habit +of leaning heavily upon an able and industrious subordinate. Mr. Gilbert +is an ambitious young lawyer who has mastered the books and who works 18 +hours a day. The voice is the voice of Mellon but the hand is the hand +of Gilbert. + +I have analyzed Mr. Mellon at Washington although only a small fraction +of his career is involved and although he operates in the difficult +circumstances of an unknown and unfavorable environment. But he is +perceptible in Washington, he does appear before Congressional +Committees and at newspaper conferences. You can study the Gilberts who +surround him. You can estimate the prepossessions that enter into our +judgment of him. You can measure him against the standard of public +life. + +In Pittsburg he is more remote. He is hedged about with the secrecy of +business. He is to be seen only through the golden aura of a great +fortune, sitting shy and awkward upon an eminence, the product of forces +and personalities which can only be guessed at. + +He was the son of a banker and inherited a considerable fortune. He +operated in a city which expanded fabulously in the course of his +lifetime. If he is shy and unbusiness-worldly, he has a brother who has +that force of personality which we usually associate with fitness for +life. His bank was the chosen instrument of Henry C. Frick, one of the +pioneer demigods, who could make the business reputations of men who +proved adaptable to his uses. + +Thus into the result there enters the power of Frick, the thrust upward +of Pittsburg, an industrial volcano, the associated personality of the +other Mellon. You have to give a name to all this combination of +favoring circumstances and favoring personalities and names are usually +given arbitrarily. The name given in this case is Andrew W. Mellon. But +how much of it is Andrew W. Mellon and how much of it is Pittsburg, how +much of it Frick, how much of it brother Mellon, an electorate seeking a +business man for office can not stop to inquire and can not learn if it +does inquire. + +If the people elect a man like Mr. Mellon to office they do not enlist +in the public service the combination of persons and forces which is +known by his name. Or if he is all that he seems to be, measured by his +great fortune, perhaps they get him after he has spent his force or +after his head is turned by success, or at any rate they put him into an +unfamiliar milieu and subject him to that corrupting temptation, the +desire for a second term or for a higher office. + +And to go back to what I have said before, they make self-government go +into bankruptcy and ask for a receiver. + +The great business-man President is just a romantic development of the +great business-man illusion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BOTTLE NECK OF THE CABINET, AND WHAT IS IN THE BOTTLE + + +Mr. Mellon's associates in the Cabinet were most of them chosen on +substantially the same principles as he was, namely, that success in +business or professional life implies fitness for public life. We have +no other standard. The present Cabinet is an "exceptionally good" +Cabinet. Many of its members are millionaires. + +Some of them owe their place to the rule that those who help elect a +President are entitled to the honor, the advertising, or the +"vindication," of high public office. + +That is to say, the same considerations that rule in the selection of +Senators rule in their selection. They were recruited from the class +from which Senators are recruited. I can not say the mental level of the +Cabinet is above that of the Senate. Take out of the upper house its two +strongest members, its two weakest, and half a dozen of the average +sort, and you construct a body in every way equal to the Cabinet of Mr. +Harding in intelligence and public morals. + +Most of them, never having been members of the upper house, have not +suffered from the depreciation in the public eye which attends service +in the legislative branch. They come rather from the wonderful business +world. + +There are, moreover, few of them compared to Senators. Smallness of +numbers suggests careful selection, superior qualifications. + +And the secrecy of Cabinet meetings makes them impressive. If reporters +were present, the public would realize that the Cabinet as a Cabinet was +mostly occupied with little things. + +The records prove it. + +The biweekly meetings of the Cabinet are commonly followed by the +announcement: "The Cabinet had a short session today. Nothing of +importance was discussed"; or, "Details of administration were +discussed." Now, of course, reasons of state may occasionally restrain +the disclosure of what actually was the subject before the Cabinet. Yet +Mr. Harding's administration has been in office more than a year, and +how many important policies has it adopted? How much wisdom has emerged +from the biweekly meetings? + +Sample announcements of the Cabinet meetings run like this: "The Cabinet +listened to the Postmaster General, explaining how much it would +facilitate the handling of the mails if people would distribute the +mailing of their letters throughout the day, instead of keeping most of +them to mail late in the afternoon when they are leaving their offices. +The Postmaster General pointed out that the government departments were +offenders in this respect." Useful; but why should the whole nation worry +about who advises with the President over the inveterate bad habits of +the people as letter writers? + +Or this: "The Cabinet spent an hour and a half today discussing what to +do with the property left in the government's hands by the war. There +are millions of dollars' worth of such property." A mere detail of +administration, but it came before the Cabinet as a whole because more +than one department was left in control of the property. + +Moreover, you may estimate the importance of cabinets from the fact +that, after all, every administration takes its color from the +President. Mr. Wilson's administration was precisely Mr. Wilson. Mr. +Harding's is precisely Mr. Harding. + +Listen to the experience of a Cabinet adviser. One of the most important +Secretaries was explaining to some friends a critical situation. "But," +interjected one of the listeners, "does President Harding understand +that?" "The President," replied the Secretary, "never has time really to +understand anything." + +And remember how Secretary Hughes told the President that the Four Power +Pact covered with its guarantees the home islands of Japan, and how a +couple of days later Mr. Harding informed the press that it did not +cover the home islands of Japan; when it transpired that the information +of Mr. Hughes on this point had effected no lodgement in the President's +mind. + +The Presidential mind; that is the bottle neck through which everything +has to pass. + +Suppose we had today the greatest statesman that this country has ever +produced as Secretary of State. Let us say Alexander Hamilton, for +example. What could Alexander Hamilton do as the head of Mr. Harding's +Cabinet? We shall assume that Alexander Hamilton had the mind to grasp +the problem of this country's relations to the world and of its interest +in the world's recovery from the havoc and the hatreds of the war, and +the constructive imagination to reach a solution of it. What could +Alexander Hamilton do? His avenue of approach to world problems would be +Mr. Harding. All that was in the mind of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary +of State, would have to pass through the mind of Warren G. Harding, +President, before it would become effective. + +The passage through would be blocked by many obstacles, for Mr. Harding +has a perfectly conventional mind; that is why he is President. One of +the pictures in Mr. Harding's head is the mechanistic, the God's Time +picture. "Things left to themselves will somehow come out all right." +Another is the racial inferiority complex. "Man is inadequate to attempt +control of his own destiny. There are the forces to be considered." A +third is the great business-man illusion. Mr. Morgan going abroad to +consider reparations may accomplish the wonders which mere statesmen can +not. All these induce avoidance of responsibility, and Mr. Harding has +the human liking for avoiding responsibility. Pressed by Mr. Hamilton, +Mr. Harding would say: "But I can not move the Senate." Pressed further, +he would say: "There is Public Opinion. We shall lose the election if we +become involved in European affairs. You and I know those Allied war +debts are worthless, but how can we make the people realize that they +are worthless?" + +Like the rest of us, Mr. Harding perhaps has none of these pictures so +firmly in his head as before the war; but the damage to the pictures +only makes him more vacillating. I am assuming in all this that Mr. +Hamilton has a free mind, which he had, relatively, when he operated a +century and a half ago. At that time he had not to think much of Public +Opinion or of parties. And the mechanistic theory of Progress, that +things come out all right with the least possible human intervention or +only the intervention of the business man, had not then assumed its +present importance. + +"Mind," says a nameless writer in the _London Nation_, "is incorrigibly +creative." It has created so many vast illusions like those above in +the last century and a half that like the American spirit in Kipling's +poem: + + "Elbowed out by sloven friends, + It camps, at sufferance, on the stoop." + +Where our actual Secretary's mind falls short of our supposititious +Secretary's mind is in the valuable quality of common sense. I am even +prepared to maintain that as a measure of reality Mr. Hughes's mind is +distinctly inferior to Mr. Harding's, which is one reason why he never +did become President and Mr. Harding did. I can not better explain what +I mean than on the basis of this quotation from a recent book of Mr. +Orage, the British critic: + +"Common sense is the community of the senses or faculties; in its +outcome it is the agreement of their reports. A thing is said to be +common sense when it satisfies the heart, the mind, the emotion and all +the senses; when, in fact, it satisfies all our various criteria of +reality." + +Mr. Hughes has only one criterion of reality, his mind, which has been +developed at the expense of all his other means of approach to the +truth. He lives in a region of facts, principles, and logical +deductions. He does not sense anything. And only men who sense reality +have common sense. For Mr. Hughes facts are solid; you can make two +nice, orderly little piles of them and build a logical bridge over the +interval between them. A true statesman builds a bridge resting on +nothing palpable, and nevertheless he crosses over it. + +Mr. Hughes's mind operates in a region of perfect demonstration; he even +demonstrates things to himself. A true statesman never succeeds in +demonstrating anything to himself; he uses demonstration only in dealing +with others. Yet he arrives in other than logical ways at a sureness for +himself which is never Mr. Hughes's. For the Secretary of State +statesmanship is an intellectual exercise, for the true statesman it is +the exercise of a dozen other faculties. An extraordinary but limited +mind, Mr. Hughes impresses us as the boy lightning calculator does, and +leaves us unsatisfied. + +Take Mr. Hughes's handling of Mexican relations as an example of what I +have called statesmanship made a purely intellectual exercise. The +practical result which was to be desired when Mr. Hughes took office was +stability and order in Mexico, the safety of American property there, +and a restoration of diplomatic intercourse. + +Mr. Hughes does not seek to obtain these results. Instead he works out +the following problem: _a_ + _b_ = _c_, in which _a_ is the fact that +Carranza had issued a decree making possible the confiscation of +American property in Mexico, _b_ is the principle of international law +that at the basis of relations between peoples must be safety of alien +property, and _c_ is a note to Mexico. + +Mr. Hughes was excited over the perfection of this intellectual +operation. He read his note with all the jubilance of the Greek +philosopher who, having discovered an important principle of physics, +exclaimed: "Eureka." Mr. Hughes's Eureka is always a piece of paper. He +is a lawyer whose triumphs are briefs and contracts. + +Now the facts were not merely that Carranza had made an offensive +gesture, issuing the famous decree; but that Mexico had not confiscated +American property and lived in such fear of her strong neighbor that she +was never likely to do so, that the Mexican supreme court had ruled +confiscation to be illegal, that the Obregon government was as stable +and as good a government as Mexico was likely to have, and that it was +to our interest to support it morally rather than encourage further +revolution there. They all pointed to recognition. + +The validity of the piece of paper that Mr. Hughes demanded of Obregon +would rest upon international law. But so did the validity of our right +to have our property in Mexico respected. We should not be in any +stronger legal position to intervene in Mexico if she violated the +contract Mr. Hughes wanted, than if she violated our property rights +there unfortified by such a piece of paper. Both rested on one and the +same law. + +Furthermore, Mexico being weak and sensitive, an arbitrary demand that +she "take the pledge," such as Mr. Hughes made, was sure to offend her +pride, and delay the consummation everyone wished--stability across the +border and a restoration of good relations. Yet Mr. Hughes was immensely +satisfied with his intellectual exercise _a_ + _b_ = _c_, _c_ being not +a solution of the Mexican problem, which at this writing is still afar +off, but a piece of paper, a note to Mexico. The sheer logical triumph +of the deduction of _c_ from _a_ and _b_ is to Mr. Hughes an end in +itself. + +Now, of course, it is not wholly overdevelopment of mind at the expense +of the other criteria of reality which leads Mr. Hughes to vain +exercises like _a_ + _b_ = _c_. He has what a recent writer has +described as "an inflamed legal sense." He has, moreover, by an +association of ideas all his own oddly transferred to law that +sacredness with which he was brought up to regard the Bible. "Sanctity +of contracts," is his favorite phrase, the word "sanctity" being highly +significant. He has, besides, Mr. Harding over him, and the Senate to +reckon with. And in the case of Mexico he has as a fellow Cabinet +member, Mr. Fall, the picture in whose head is of a "white man" teaching +a "greaser" to respect him. He has to think of winning elections, of his +own political ambitions. All these inhibitory influences which generally +produce negation do not estop Mr. Hughes. His mind is too vigorous for +that. It pursues its way energetically to results, such as _a_ + _b_ = +_c_. + +Now, of course, the handling of Mexican relations is not Mr. Hughes's +major achievement. But even his major achievement, the Washington +conference with its resultant nine pieces of paper, was more or less a +lawyer's plea in avoidance. + +The major problem which confronted Mr. Hughes was this: The Great War +had been followed, as Mr. H. G. Wells aptly says, by the Petty Peace. It +was threatening, and still threatens, to flame up again. The problem of +a real peace confronted Mr. Hughes, because Mr. Wilson had sought to +establish one and failed, and had thus set a certain standard of effort +for his successor. Moreover, Mr. Hughes had said that every man, woman, +and child in the United States was vitally interested in the economic +recovery of Europe. + +Mr. Hughes had either to face this task or divert the mind of the court +to some other issue. He chose to find his _a_ + _b_ = _c_ elsewhere. The +problem of establishing peace where there was war was difficult; perhaps +it was too hard for any man, but has not humanity--I say humanity +because it is Mr. Harding's favorite word--has not humanity the right to +ask of its statesmen something more than timidity and avoidance? The +problem of establishing peace where there was peace, in the Orient, was +relatively easy. + +The war had left the great sea powers with excessive navies and +insupportable naval budgets. All wanted naval limitation. It was only +necessary to propose an agreement for reduction to have it accepted. + +Even the dramatic method of making the proposal, with details of the +tonnage to be scrapped, was not Mr. Hughes's idea. Let us do the man in +the White House justice. He conceived it on the _Mayflower_; read it to +Senator James Watson who was with him, and wirelessed it to the State +Department. + +There was the further problem, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Mr. Hughes +wanted it ended. Japan and England wanted it substituted by a compact +which should be signed by its two signatories and the United States. + +All that Mr. Hughes had to do to establish peace where there was peace +was to offer an agreement upon naval armament and accept the +Anglo-Japanese plan for a wider pact in the Pacific. The details would +involve discussion, but the success of the general program was assured +in advance. + +The conference was called, hurriedly, because, as Mr. Harding once +explained, if he had not hastened someone else would have anticipated +him in calling it. This shows how obvious was the expedient. The idea of +naval limitation was no more original than the idea of the conference. +Mr. Borah had proposed it. Lord Lee had proposed it, in the British +Parliament. The idea of the Four Power Pact was made in England--it had +long been discussed there--and brought over by Mr., now Lord, Balfour. +He laid it at Mr. Hughes's feet. + +Mr. Balfour sought no triumphs. They should all go to Mr. Hughes. He has +the art of inconspicuousness, the result of many generations of fine +breeding. As you saw him in the plenary sessions clutching the lapels of +his coat with both hands and modestly struggling for utterance after an +immense flow of words from our chief delegate, you could not help +feeling patriotic pride in the contrast. + +Besides, Mr. Balfour was captivated. He became, for the nonce, perfectly +American. Mr. H. Wickham Steed said to me, hearing the chief British +delegate speak: "It is a new Balfour at this conference." Certainly as +you heard the voice, moved and moving, emotional perhaps for the first +time in his life, you realized that it was not Mr. Balfour, "proceeding +on his faded way" as the _London Nation_ expressed it, who was speaking. +It was Mr. Balfour as he might be at a great revival meeting, such as +Mr. Hughes in his youth must have often attended. + +On the Four Power Pact the best comment ever made was Mr. Frank +Simonds's, "It was invented to save the British Empire from committing +bigamy." + +[Illustration: ARTHUR BALFOUR] + +The results of the Washington conference were substantial. They put off +war where none was threatening. Perhaps in the longer future they +will be seen to be no more than a prolongation of the intent of the +Versailles treaty, confirming the dichotomy of powers which that +instrument created. Germany, Russia, and China were treated as outsiders +in both conferences. + +But the great _a_ + _b_ = _c_ of last winter left peace where there is +war still unwritten. The problem which "humanity" posed to Mr. Hughes is +as yet unattempted. It is as exigent as ever. Immensely plausible as he +is, events have a way of overtaking him. Remembering what happened on +election night in 1916, I think one cannot sum him up better than by +saying that he has the habit of always being elected in the early +returns. As in the case of the lightning calculator, after you have +recovered from your first surprise at his mental exhibition you are +inclined to ask, "But what is the good of it all?" + +The two most important advisers to the President in the existing Cabinet +are Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hoover. The limitations of the Secretary of State +are the limitations of a legalistic mind. The limitations of Mr. Hoover +are the limitations of a scientific mind. Men, considered politically, +do not behave like mathematical factors nor like chemical elements. + +Someone asked Mr. Hoover recently why he sent corn to Russia instead of +wheat. "Because," replied the Secretary of Commerce without a moment's +hesitation, "for one dollar I can buy so many calories"--carrying it +out to the third decimal place--"in corn, and only so many"--again to +the third decimal place--"in wheat. I get about twice as many in corn as +in wheat." + +Mr. Hoover is at his best in feeding a famished population. He then has +men where he wants them--I say this without meaning to reflect upon Mr. +Hoover's humanitarian impulses; perhaps I should better say he then has +men where for the free operation of his scientific mind he requires to +have them. For in a famine men become mere chemical retorts. You pour +into them a certain number of calories. Oxidization produces a certain +energy. And the exact energy necessary to sustain life is calculable. + +In a famine men cease to be individuals. They can not say, "I never ate +corn. I do not know how to cook corn. I do not like corn." They behave +in perfectly calculable ways. So many calories, oxidization; so much +energy. + +Conceive a society in which results were always calculable: so many men, +so much fuel, so much consequent horsepower, and Mr. Hoover would make +for it an admirable benevolent dictator; for he is benevolent. If +Bolshevism at its most complete exemplification had been a success and +become the order of the world, Mr. Hoover might have made a great head +of a state; with labor conscripted and food conscripted, all you would +have to do would be to apply the food, counted in calories, to the +labor, and production in a readily estimable quantity would ensue. I am +not trying to suggest that this represents Mr. Hoover's ideal of +society; it surely does not. I am only saying that this is the kind of +society in which Mr. Hoover would develop his fullest utility. + +Science inevitably reduces man to the calculable automaton, otherwise it +can deduce no laws about him;--such as, for example, the legal man, a +fiction that haunts Mr. Hughes's brain; the chemical retort man, of Mr. +Hoover's mind; the economic man, another convenient fiction; the +scientific socialism man, another pure fiction, derived from the +economic man and forming the basis for Bolshevism at its fullest +development. + +Now if Chemistry should somehow acquire eccentricity, so that two +elements combined in a retort would sometimes produce one result and +sometimes another totally different, the chemist would be no more unsure +in his mind than is Mr. Hoover, operating for the first time in a +society of free, self-governing men. Or perhaps it would be a better +analogy to say that if the chemist when he put an agent into a retort +could not be sure what other elements were already in it, and could not +tell whether the result would be an explosion or a pleasant and useful +recombination, he would be somewhat in the position of Mr. Hoover. + +You will observe that I am trying to dissociate the real Hoover from the +myth Hoover, always a difficult process, which may require years for +its accomplishment. I do not pretend that this is the final +dissociation. All we know with certainty of the real Hoover is that when +he has society at the starvation line and can say "so many calories, so +much energy," he works with extraordinary sureness. + +When he operates in a normal society he takes his chemical agent in hand +and consults Mr. Harding, Mr. Daugherty, or Mr. Weeks as to what agents +there are in the political retort, and whether the placing of his agent +in with them will produce an explosion or a profitable recombination. + +So you see the practical utility of his mind is conditioned upon the +minds of Mr. Harding, Mr. Weeks, and Mr. Daugherty. It is a fertile +mind, which invents, however, only minor chemical reactions, neither he +nor Mr. Harding being sure enough about the dirty and incalculable +vessel of politics to know when an explosion may result, and neither of +them being bold enough to take chances. + +Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hoover, and Mr. Daugherty are the only outstanding +figures in the Cabinet. The Attorney General lives in an unreal world of +his own, which at the moment of this writing threatens to come tumbling +down about his head. + +The clue to Mr. Daugherty's world is found in a sentence of Thomas +Felder's letter apropos of the failure to collect the $25,000 fee for +securing the release of Charles W. Morse from prison, in which he tells +how he associated with himself Mr. Daugherty, "who stood as close to the +President as any other lawyer or citizen of the United States." +"Standing close," men may laugh at the gods, may "take the cash and let +the credit go." It is a world of little things without any tomorrow. +Long views and large views do not matter. Forces? Principles? Perhaps, +but the main thing is all men should "stand close." It is an immensely +human world, where men if they are not masters of their own destiny may +at least cheat fate for a little brief hour, if only they remain true to +each other no matter what befalls. + +Mr. Harding, one side of him belongs to that world of Mr. Daugherty's, +while another side belongs to that larger political world where morals, +wrapped in vague sentimental words, hold sway. It is because he belongs +to that world that Mr. Daugherty is Attorney General. Mr. Daugherty +"stood close" to Mr. Harding all his life. "Standing close" creates an +obligation. Mr. Harding, as President, must in return "stand close" to +Mr. Daugherty. + +He does so. To the caller who visited him when the Morse-Felder letters +were coming out daily, and who was apprehensive of the consequences, the +President said, "You don't know Harry Daugherty. He is as clean and +honorable a man as there is in this country." In such a world as this, +your friend can do no wrong. Goldstein, who received the $2,500 from +Lowden's campaign manager, belongs to it. Therefore, he can do no wrong. +Therefore, his name goes from the White House to the Senate for +confirmation as Collector of Internal Revenue at St. Louis. + +To go back to the time before he became Attorney General, Daugherty +practiced law in Columbus, Ohio. His cases came to him, largely as the +Morse retainer did, because he "stood close" to somebody, to the +President, to Senators, to Governors of Ohio, or Legislatures of Ohio. +His was not a highly lucrative practice, for Mr. Daugherty is one of the +few relatively poor men in the present Cabinet. You may deduce from this +circumstance a conclusion as favorable as that which the President, who +knows him so well, does. I am concerned only in presenting the facts. At +least Mr. Daugherty did not grow rich out of "standing close." + +Nor did he accumulate a reputation. When men "stand close" those who are +outside the circle invariably regard them with a certain suspicion. Your +professional politician, for that is what Daugherty was, always is an +object of doubt. And for this reason he always seeks what is technically +known as a "vindication." Conscious of his own rectitude, as he measures +it, he may come out of office cleared in the world's eyes, and with a +fine title, to boot, ready for life upon a new level. And this +"vindication" sometimes does take place. + +I have no doubt that Mr. Daugherty entered office with the most +excellent intentions. He had everything to gain personally from "making +a record" in the Attorney Generalship, a title and a higher standing at +the bar. Moreover, he was the loyal friend of the President and desired +the success of the administration. + +But it is not so easy. You cannot one moment by "standing close" laugh +at the gods and the next range yourself easily and commodiously on the +side of the gods. The gods may be unkind even to those who mean to be +with them from the outset, establishing their feet firmly upon logic or +upon calories; how much more so may they be with those who would +suddenly change sides? + +At least it is a matter that admits of no compromise. What is he going +to do in office with those who "stood close" to him as he "stood close" +to President Taft? All the "close standers" turn up in Washington. For +example, Mr. Felder, who "stood close" in the Morse case and who perhaps +for that reason appears as counsel in the Bosch-Magneto case, where the +prosecution moves slowly, and who moreover permits himself some +indiscretions. There is a whole army of "close standers." There are the +prosecutions that move slowly. Neither circumstance is necessarily +significant. There are always the "close standers." Prosecutions always +move slowly. But the two circumstances together! + +I present all this merely to show what kind of adviser the Attorney +General is, his limited conception of life on this little world, and +life's, perhaps temporary, revenge upon him. No one at this writing can +pass judgment, so I give, along with the facts and the appearances, the +best testimonial that a man can have, that quoted above from the +President. + +In physique the Attorney General is burly, thick-necked, his eyes are +unsteady, his face alternately jovial and minatory,--I should say he +bluffed effectively,--rough in personality, a physical law requiring +that bodies easily cemented together, and thus "standing close," should +not have too smooth an exterior. His view of the world being highly +personal, his instinctive idea of office is that it, too, is personal, +something to be used, always within the law, to aid friends and punish +enemies. He wrote once to a newspaper, which was opposing his +appointment, in substance that he would be Attorney General in spite of +it and that he had a long memory. + +Secretary of War Weeks is the only other general adviser of Mr. Harding +in the Cabinet. He is politically minded. Like Mr. Harding he is half of +the persuasion of Mr. Daugherty about organization, and half of the +other persuasion about the sway of moral forces. All in all he is +nearer akin mentally to the President than any other member of the +Cabinet, but with more industry and more capacity for details than his +chief. He is of the clean desk tradition; Mr. Harding is not. + +[Illustration: ATTORNEY-GENERAL H. M. DAUGHERTY] + +Half politician and half business man, he interprets business to the +politician, and politics to business. He is a middle grounder. He quit +banking satisfied with a moderate fortune, saying, "The easiest thing I +ever did was to make money." + +His bland voice and mild manner indicate the same moderation in +everything that he showed in making money; his narrowing eyes, the +caution which led him to quit banking when he went into politics. + +Politics intrigues him, but he has not a first-class mind for it, as his +experiences in Massachusetts proved. + +Frank to the utmost limits his caution will permit, people like him, but +not passionately. Men respect his ability, but they do not feel strongly +about it. He never becomes the center of controversy, as Daugherty is, +as Hoover has been, and as Hughes may at any time be. I have never seen +him angry, I have seen him enthusiastic. A Laodicean in short. + +Secretary Fall hoped to be one of the chief advisers, but has been +disappointed. Mr. Harding had said of him, "His is the best mind in the +Senate," but he has found other minds more to his liking in the Cabinet. + +With a long drooping mustache, he looks like a stage sheriff of the Far +West in the movies. His voice is always loud and angry. He has the +frontiers-man's impatience. From his kind lynch law springs. + +He wanted to lynch Mexico. When he entered the Cabinet he said to his +Senate friends, "If they don't follow me on Mexico I shall resign." He +has been a negative rather than a positive force there regarding Mexico, +deviating Mr. Hughes into the ineffective position he occupies. + +He has the frontiers-man's impatience of conservation. Probably he is +right. His biggest contribution to his country's welfare will be oil +land leases, like that of Teapot Dome. + +The Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Wallace, is an excellent technical +adviser, as unobtrusive as experts usually are. + +The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Denby, with his flabby jowls and large +shapeless mouth, has a big heart, and more enthusiasm than he has +self-command, judgment, or intelligence. He committed political suicide +cheerfully, when the Cannon machine in the House fell into disfavor. He +would do anything for a friend, not as Mr. Daugherty would because it +pays, but because he is a friend. A cause commands an equal loyalty from +him. Just because his head is not as big as his heart he is a minor +factor. + +Mr. Davis, Secretary of Labor, is a professional glad hand man, +appointed because the administration meant to extend nothing to Labor +but a glad hand. When a crisis presents itself in industrial relations, +Mr. Hoover, who spreads himself over several departments, attends to it. +At the conference on unemployment, which was Mr. Hoover's, the best and +only example of the unemployed present was the Secretary of Labor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR OF MUCH LITTLENESS + + +We have a form of government suited to effect the will of a simple +primitive people, a people with one clear aim. When we are all of one +mind the government works. The executive represents the general +intention, Congress represents the same intention. The party in power +owes its position to the thoroughness with which it expresses the common +purpose. Or, if you go back further, the structure of business serves +the same social aim. + +Now, under such circumstances, it makes little difference where +authority resides, whether there is government by business, or +government by parties, or executive domination, or whether Congress is +the ruling branch. The result is the same, the single purpose of the +community finds its just expression. + +And so it was in the blessed nineties to which Mr. Harding would have us +return. The people were united upon one end, the rapid appropriation of +the virgin wealth of this continent and its distribution among the +public, and they had no doubt this was being admirably accomplished by +the existing business structure. Parties and governments were +subsidiary. The system worked. + +In a pioneer society waste is unimportant; it may even be economy. +Forests are cut and all but the choicest wood thrown away. They are not +replanted. While they are so plentiful it would be a waste of time and +effort to use the poor timber or to replace the felled trees. + +In a similar society faulty distribution, which is ordinarily a social +waste, is unimportant. There is plenty for all. And it may even be a +waste of time and effort, checking accomplishment, to seek better +adjustments. The object of society is the rapid exploitation of the +resources nature has made available. Everyone gains in the process. +Justice is a detail, as much a detail as is the inferior timber left to +rot. + +We no longer have the unity of aim of a pioneer society, yet we have not +readjusted our actual government in conformity with the altered social +consciousness. Instead we are trying to readjust ourselves to a practice +that is outworn. Having ceased to be pioneers, becoming various and +healthily divided, instead of making our system express the new variety +in our life, and still function, we are trying to force ourselves by +heavy penalties and awful bugaboos back into that unity under which our +system does work. + +And when I say that we have a form of government suited only to a +pioneer society, though we have ceased to be a pioneer society, let no +one think that I would lay a profane hand upon that venerated +instrument, the Constitution of the United States. I am thinking only of +the Constitution's boasted elasticity. A new stretching is required, to +fit a larger and more diversified society than that to which we have +hitherto applied it. + +For a simple, primitive people, for a pioneer society with but one task +to accomplish,--the appropriation and distribution of the undeveloped +resources of a continent,--details of distribution being unimportant +where natural wealth was so vast, government by business or government +by parties as the agents of business served admirably. The essential +unity which is not to be found in our government of divided powers +existed in the single engrossing aim of the public. + +For a temporary end, like the common defense, against an external enemy +or against an imagined internal enemy, concentration upon the Executive +also serves. The unity of purpose which the nation has is imported into +the government through elevating the President into a dominant position. +In the one case the government is made to work by putting all branches +of it under control of one authority outside itself; in the other, by +upsetting the nice balance which the Fathers of the Constitution set up +and, under the fiction of party authority, resorting to one man +Government. + +But what happens when there ceases to be a single aim, when the fruits +of the earth are no longer sufficient to go around generously so that no +one need question his share, when a conflict of interests arises, when +classes begin to emerge, when in short we have the situation which +exists in America today? + +Let us examine for a moment the Executive as a source of unity in the +government of such a divergent society. To make him executive minorities +must agree upon him. He must, to use Mr. Harding as an illustration, be +satisfactory to the farmers with one point of view and to Wall Street +with another, he must be acceptable to the Irish Americans and to the +German Americans and to several other varieties of Americans, he must +take the fence between those who believe in a League of Nations and +those who hate a League of Nations, he must please capital and at the +same time not alienate labor. + +Mr. Harding gave a glimpse of his difficulties when he said during the +campaign, "I could make better speeches than these, but I have to be so +careful." The greatest common divisor of all the minorities that go to +making a winning national combination must be neutral, he must be +colorless, he must not know that his soul is his own. The greatest +common divisor of all the elements in the nation's political +consciousness today is inevitably a Mr. Harding. We shall probably have +a whole series of Mr. Hardings in the White House. + +And when this greatest common divisor of all the classes and all the +interests, this neutral, colorless person to whom no one can find any +objection, enters the White House does he represent Labor? So little +that he will not have a labor man in his Cabinet. Does he represent +Capital? By instinct, by party training, by preference, yes, but capital +is so divided that it is hard to represent, and the President, like the +candidate, "has to be so careful." Does he represent the farmers? He +says so, but the farmers choose to be represented elsewhere, on the +hill, where they can find agents whose allegiance is not so divided. + +And carefulness does not end upon election. Once a candidate always a +candidate. The entire first term of a president is his second candidacy. +His second term, if he wins one, is the candidacy of his successor, in +whose election he is vitally interested; for the continuance of his +party in power is the measure of public approval of himself. A president +who is the greatest common divisor of groups and interests "must always +be so careful" that he can never be a Roosevelt or a Wilson. + +Recapitulating the experiences of other peoples with political +institutions, we have quickly, since our discovery of one man rule, run +upon the period of little kings. The Carolingians have followed close +upon the heels of the great Carl. The institution which in the first +decade of the twentieth century was a wonderful example of our capacity +to adopt the rigors of a written constitution to our ends, of the +practical genius of the American people, in the third decade of the +twentieth century is already dead. + +The monarch with power, not the mere survival who satisfies the instinct +for the picturesque, for the play of the emotions in politics, is suited +to an undifferentiated people pursuing a single simple end; one end, one +man, many ends, many men is the rule. The greatest common divisor of +such masses of men as inhabit this continent, so variously sprung, so +variously seeking their place in the sun, is something that has to be so +careful as to become a nullity. + +There is no reason why our presidents should not become like all single +heads of modern civilized peoples, largely ornamental, largely links +with the past, symbols to stir our inherited feelings as we watch their +gracious progress through the movies. Mr. Harding is headed that way and +if that Providence which watches over American destinies vouchsafes him +to us for eight years instead of only four, the Presidency under him +will make progress toward a place alongside monarchy under King George. + +Already, in the habit of blaming every failure and disappointment upon +Congress, we see signs of the growth of the happy belief that the King +can do no wrong. When the King does nothing he can do no wrong. + +There is no reason why we should not repeat the experiences of peoples +who have gone further upon the road of social differentiation than we +have and develop like them parliamentary government. By this I do not +mean to echo the nonsense that has been written about having the Cabinet +officers sit in Congress. + +What is more likely to come is a new shift in the balance, a new +manifestation of our genius for the practical, which no written +constitution can restrain, which will place the initiative in the +legislative branch, whereas I have said, under Mr. Harding it is already +passing, and which will make Congress rather than the President the +dominant factor in our political life. + +This process is already taking place. + +When President Harding asked the advice of the Senate whether he should +revive an old treaty with Germany suspended by the war, pointing proudly +to the tenderness he was showing the partner of his political joys, he +conceded an authority in the legislative branch which neither the +Constitution nor our traditions had placed there. He took a step toward +recognizing the prospective dominance of Congress. It was one of many. + +It is a long distance, as political institutions are measured, from +President Wilson's telling the Senate that it must bow to his will even +in dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the Versailles Treaty, to +Mr. Harding's asking the Senate what was its will regarding the old +German treaty. Foreign relations are precisely the field where the +executive power seems by the Constitution to have been most clearly +established, yet it is just here that the legislative branch has made +its most remarkable advance toward a dominating position; perhaps +because this topic gained a temporary importance from the war and it was +naturally in the most significant area that the conflict between the two +branches of the government had to break out. + +When President Harding introduced the treaties and pacts resulting from +the Washington Conference into the Senate, he said that he had been a +Senator and knew the Senate views, and that all the agreements he was +offering for ratification had been negotiated with scrupulous regard to +the Senate's will. And he pleaded with the Senate not to disavow the +Executive and impair its standing in the conduct of foreign relations. + +No more complete avowal could be made of the dominant position which the +Senate has come to occupy in the diplomatic affairs of the country. + +In the field where he was supposed legally to have the initiative the +President became expressly the agent of the Senate. The Senate laid out +the limits of policy and the Executive scrupulously, so he said, +observed those limits. + +This speech of Mr. Harding's, like his consulting the Senate in advance +upon the reviving of the German treaty, is one of the significant +evidences of the shift of power that is taking place, away from the +Executive toward the Legislative. It did not attract the attention it +deserved because our minds are still full of the past when the +Presidency was a great office under Wilson and Roosevelt. We read of Mr. +Harding's going to the hill to tell Congress what it must do, and we +ignore the fact that he always does so when Congress sends for him, +acting as their agent. + +The King still makes his speech to Parliament, though the speech is +written by the ministers. They are his ministers, though Parliament +selects them. The power of the King is a convenient fiction. The power +of the President will always remain a convenient fiction, even if it +should come to have no more substance than that of the King. + +In truth it has been the Senate not the Executive that has been +determining our foreign policy in its broader outlines for more than two +years. The Secretary of State works out the details. But the Senate says +"thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And when the Secretary of State +has gone farther, as in the case of the peace treaty with Germany, the +Senate has amended his work. So Senator Penrose did not exaggerate, when +he said apropos of Mr. Hughes's appointment, "It makes no difference who +is Secretary of State, the Senate will make the foreign policy." The +President has only recently declared that it has done so. + +So gradual has been the extension of the Senate's prerogative that few +realize how far it has gone. So low had the Senate sunk in public +estimation during the war that it did not occur to President Wilson that +he might not safely ignore it in making peace. He appointed no Senators +to the delegation which went to Paris. He did not consult the Senate +during the negotiations nor did he ever take pains to keep the Senate +informed. He proceeded on the theory that he might sign treaties with +perfect confidence that the Senate would accept them unquestioningly. +And so impressed was the country at the time with the power of the +Presidency that Mr. Wilson's tacit assumption of dictatorial power over +Congress was generally taken as a matter of course. + +All this was changed under Mr. Wilson's successor. One half of Mr. +Harding's delegation to the Washington Conference was made up of +Senators. At every step of the negotiation the Senate's susceptibilities +were borne in mind. No commitment was entered into which would exceed +the limits set by the Senate to the involvement of this country abroad. +Almost daily Mr. President consulted with Senators and explained to them +what the American Commission was doing. Practically the Executive became +the agent of the Senate in foreign relations and in the end he told the +Senate what a good and faithful servant he had been and how scrupulously +he had respected its will. + +It was only superficially that Secretary Hughes was the outstanding +figure of the Conference. The really outstanding figure was the Senate. +Mr. Hughes was not free. Mr. Harding was not free. The controlling +factor was the Senate. The treaties had to be acceptable to the Senate, +whose views were known in advance. No theory of party authority, of +executive domination, would save them if they contravened the Senatorial +policy disclosed in the Versailles Treaty debate and insisted upon anew +to Mr. Hughes's grievous disappointment when the reservation was +attached to the separate peace with Germany. When it was realized that +Senate opposition to the Four Power Pact had been courted through the +inadvertent guaranty of the home islands of Japan, the agreement was +hastily modified to meet the Senate's views. President and Secretary of +State behaved at this juncture like a couple of clerks caught by their +employer in a capital error. + +And even Mr. Hughes's prominence was half accidental. The Senate is +strong in position but weak in men. Mr. Hughes is vastly Mr. Lodge's +superior in mind, in character, and in personality. Suppose the +situation reversed, suppose the Senate rich in leadership, suppose it +were Mr. Aldrich instead of Mr. Lodge who sat with Mr. Hughes in the +Commission, then the Senate which had made the foreign policy in its +broad outlines would itself have filled in the details, and a Senator +instead of the Secretary of State would have been the chief figure of +the American delegation. + +Where did Mr. Harding's plan of settling international affairs by +conferences originate? You will find it in a document which Senator Knox +brought out to Marion, Ohio, in January, 1921. Reports had come to +Washington that Mr. Harding's Association of Nations, which was being +discussed with the best minds was only Mr. Wilson's league re-cast. The +leaders of the Senate met and agreed on a policy. Mr. Knox took it to +the President elect. Instead of a formally organized association there +was to be nothing more than international conferences and the +appointment of international commissions as the occasion for them arose. +Mr. Harding's policy is the Senate's policy. + +The Senate's victory has been complete. The United States did not ratify +the Versailles Treaty. It did not enter the League of Nations. It did +make a separate treaty of peace with Germany. It did not appoint a +member of the Reparations Commission--the Senate's reservation to Mr. +Hughes's treaty keeping that question in the control of Congress. + +Senatorial control of foreign relations seems now to be firmly +established. No future president, after Mr. Wilson's experiences with +the Versailles Treaty and Mr. Harding's with the Four Power Pact, will +negotiate important foreign engagements without informing himself fully +of the Senate's will. And the principle has been established that the +Senate shall be directly represented on American delegations to world +conferences. + +I recall this history of the recent conflict between the Executive and +the Senate over foreign relations to show how completely in this +important field the theory of presidential dominance has broken down and +been replaced by the practice of senatorial dominance. No amendment to +the constitution has taken place. The President still acts "with the +advice and consent of the Senate." Only now he takes the advice first so +as to be sure of the consent afterward, instead of acting first and +obtaining the advice and consent afterward. + +The Senate has been aided in this conflict with the Executive by the +constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority for the ratification +of a treaty. If a majority would suffice, a President, by invoking the +claims of party, by organizing public opinion, by judiciously using +patronage might put his agreements with foreign nations through. But a +two-thirds vote is not to be obtained by these methods; the only +practicable means is to accept the Senate's views of foreign policy and +conform to it. + +As soon as foreign relations became sufficiently important to fight over +the conflict was inevitable and the victory of the Senate certain. + +The conflict between the two branches of the Government will not stop +with this victory of the Senate. It has always been present and probably +always will be. The importance of the domestic problems that the war +left will cause Congress to insist upon a free hand to make domestic +policies. In the past Congress busied itself about little except the +distribution of moneys for public buildings and river and harbor +improvement. The handling of these funds the legislative branch kept out +of executive control. + +Now public buildings and improvements have become relatively +unimportant. But the deepest economic interests of constituents are +involved. Formerly taxes were small and lightly regarded. Today their +incidence is the subject of a sharp dispute between classes and +industries. + +Furthermore the use of government credit for certain economic ends, such +as those favored by the farmers, will cause a clash between sections, +groups, industries, and strata of society. Policies of large importance +will have to be adopted about which there will be a vast difference of +opinion. The divergent interests cannot be represented in the White +House, for the Presidency embodies the compromise of all the interests. +They will have to find their voice in Congress. When they find their +voice the great policies will be made. And where the great policies will +be made there the power will be. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CONGRESS AT LAST WITH SOMETHING TO DO HAS NO ONE TO DO IT + + +When Lazarus was raised from the dead it took him a long time to find +out that he was again alive. His legs were stiff from being so long +extended. His arms were cramped from being decently arranged across his +breast. The circulation starting in his members produced disagreeable +sensations which recalled his mortal illness and the pains of +dissolution. The last thing that this discomfort suggested was life. + +Even thus it is with Congress, it has been so long dead that it is hard +for it to realize that it has once again come to life. It suffers from +various unpleasant sensations in its members, from blocs, from lack of +leadership, from indifference to party, from factionalism, from +individualism, from incapacity to do business. They are all vaguely +reminiscent of the pains of dissolution. On the dissolution theory they +are decent and explicable, for death is always decent and explicable. + +As signs of life they are scandalous, and everybody body is scandalized +over them for fear that a vital Congress will be something new to reckon +with. + +If Congress does realize that it has waked from the dead, who will be +worse scandalized than the senile persons whom the newspapers +respectfully call its "leaders"? What more threatening spectacle for +second childhood is there than first childhood? + +Suppose Congress were again a lusty and vigorous creature with the blood +of youth in its veins, how long would Henry Cabot Lodge, aged +seventy-two, remain leader of the Senate? Lodge, the irascible old man, +with worn nerves, who claps his hands for the Senate pages as if they +were not of the same flesh and blood with himself, and who would, if he +could follow his instincts, clap his hands in the same way to summon the +majority Senators, the recluse who is kept alive by old servants who +understand and anticipate every whim, to enjoy greedily the petty +distinctions that have come to him late because the Senate itself was +more than half dead? + +And who would be worse scandalized than the ancient committee chairman, +some with one foot in the grave? At one time in the first year of Mr. +Harding's administration the important chairmanships in the Senate were +disposed thus: Finance, the most powerful committee, Senator Penrose, a +dying man; Foreign Relations, Senator Lodge, 72; Interstate Commerce, +Senator Cummins, 72, and broken with illness; Judiciary, Senator +Nelson, 79 and living back in the Civil War in which he served as a +private; Immigration, Senator Colt, 76. + +Suppose Congress should come to life and represent the real interests of +the various sections, classes, and, let us say, kinds of property and +business in this country--how long would the Senate remain such a +pleasant place to die in? + +When these old gentlemen made their successful fight upon President +Wilson they signed their own death warrants, and began putting an end to +the system that made their tenure possible. Only a Congress which had +long been a subject of public contempt could have fallen into and could +have remained in their hands. Granted that Congress is negligible, it +makes no difference who sits in it or how decrepit its leadership. + +But shift power once more to the legislative, and the various +conflicting interests throughout the country will grasp for the offices +now in enfeebled hands. And by taking predominance in foreign relations +away from the Executive and transferring it to themselves, the elderly +and infirm "leaders," who have been tolerated out of half contempt, have +started the avalanche of authority in their direction. It will sweep +them off their unsteady feet. + +Let us examine what they have done. When they opposed Mr. Wilson on the +Versailles Treaty they established the power of the Senate to mark out +broadly the foreign policy of the United States, a dangerous enough +beginning for persons who were merely tolerated because Congress was +nearly negligible and it was a matter of little difference to the public +who its managers were. But when they altered Mr. Harding's treaties they +also denied the authority of the Executive as the head of his party to +align them in support of his program. + +Party authority vested in the Executive thus impaired, it was not long +before the representatives of agricultural states also denied it, and +began to take their orders from the Farm Bureau Federation instead of +from the White House. Then the House leaders in open defiance of the +"head of the party" prepared and reported a soldiers' bonus bill which +contravened the express purposes of the Executive regarding this +legislation. Here we have the organization joining with the farm bloc in +declaring the legislature to be its own master. + +But on what do the octogenarian feet of Mr. Lodge and Mr. Cummins, and +Mr. Colt and Mr. Nelson, and the others, rest except upon party +authority? Not upon representing any real or vital principle in the +national life. Not upon any force of intelligence or personality. + +They move in a region of fictions. They represent the Republican party, +when there is no Republican party, no union on principles, no stable +body of voters, no discipline, no clear social end to be served. + +When votes for legislation must be had, Senator James Watson circulates +about among the faithless pleading in the name of party loyalty--as well +talk of fealty to Jupiter in the capitol of the Popes! + +In extremities the President, as "head of his party," is brought on the +scene,--for all the world like the practice of a certain cult which long +after its founder was dead used to dress up a lay figure to resemble him +and drive it about the marketplace, to reassure the faithful and confirm +the influence of the priests. Mr. Harding is alive enough, but the "head +of his party" is dead and a mere fiction of priests like "Jim" Watson. + +Power has passed or is passing from the Executive and has found no one +in Congress to receive it. The arrival of power causes as much +consternation on the hill as the outbreak of war does among the +incompetent swivel chair bureaucrats of an army in a nation that has +been long at peace. + +Power is passing to Congress because Congress says who shall pay the +taxes and who may use the public credit. Where there was one interest a +generation ago, there are many interests today, each trying to place the +burden of taxation upon others and reaching for the credit itself. +Taxation and credit are the big stakes today and Congress has them in +its atrophied grasp. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JAMES E. WATSON OF INDIANA] + +The question what is the matter with Congress has received more answers +than any other question asked about American institutions. For almost +a generation the national legislature has been regarded as the one +great failure in self government. For years it has been the home of +small men concerned with petty things which it approached in a petty +spirit, incompetent, wasteful, and hypocritical, a trial to the +Executive, almost a plague to the country. It has shared with state +legislatures and municipal boards of aldermen the impatience of the +people. In spite of searchings of the public conscience it has gone from +bad to worse till it is at its lowest point today, in personnel, in +organization, in capacity to transact business. + +What has brought Congress to this state has been the unimportance of its +work, "doing such little things," as Mr. Root said after his six years +in the Senate. Natural economy prevents the sending of a man on a boy's +errand even if the man would go. + +The great power which legislatures have, that over the public purse, has +not been of enough importance to make Congress a great legislature. +Taxes were light and before the war fell so indirectly that the public +gave them little attention. The control of the budget virtually passed +out of the hands of Congress, for executive departments habitually +exceeded their appropriations and Congress always made up the +deficiencies. There was no tax upon incomes. Taxpayers were indifferent. +A few hundred millions more or less was of no account. + +Dispensations to business in the shape of protective duties upon +imports, a form of taxation which once made Congress a dominant factor +in national life, had become steadily less important as American +industry grew strong enough to hold its own market against competition +and to compete itself in other markets. With the subsidence of the +tariff as an issue Congress lost its last power to impose taxes in which +the country was deeply interested. Where the control of the public purse +and taxes are unimportant, legislatures are weak, unless executive +authority is vested in a Cabinet formed from among their members. + +With the enfeeblement of Congress through the growing unimportance of +the taxing power, its great function, came the tendency to magnify the +Executive. Power has to go somewhere, and it went down Pennsylvania +Avenue. And this movement coincided with the development of +centralization. Congress, which was full of the spirit of localism, was +not a perfect instrument of centralization. The Executive was. + +To elevate the President it was necessary to depress Congress. It became +the fashion to speak sneeringly of the Legislative branch, to sympathize +with presidents who "had Congress on their hands," to write of "the +shame of the Senate," and when any issue existed between the two parts +of the government to throw the force of public opinion on the side of +the executive. The press printed endless criticism of the Senate and +the House. Theories of government were invented to reduce Congress to a +subordinate place. + +Meanwhile Congress, having regard for the character of its membership, +was agreed that incompetence should suffer no disabilities. All that was +required for political preferment within it was political longevity. + +The seniority rule, by which committee chairmanships went not to ability +but to long service, favored mediocrity and second childhood. Even more, +incompetence banded together jealously to protect itself against +competence and shunted it into minor assignments. While the public was +regarding Congress with contempt Congress was well satisfied to make +itself contemptible. + +Suppose we had developed a capacity for breeding statesmen in this +country, which we have not, would any man of first-class talents seek a +public career in such an institution as I have described? In the first +place, the people were visiting Congress with indifference, or worse +than indifference, and ambition will not serve under indifference. In +the next place that great power which makes legislatures dominant, the +power to tax and to distribute the fruits of taxation, had become +temporarily unimportant; and again, Congress itself was organized for +self-protection against brains and character. + +Senator Root quit the Senate in disgust. Senator Kenyon has just +followed his example in even deeper disgust. A Tammany Congressman after +one term said, "They tie horses to Congressmen in Washington." + +Congress is upon the whole a faithful reflection of the American +political consciousness. Democracy is a relatively new thing. It has not +taken hold of the minds and hearts of men. Shadowy and half-unconscious +faiths dispute its place. De Gourmont writing of the persistence of +Paganism in Catholicism, says that no religion ever dies but lives on in +its successor. So no government ever dies but lives on in its successor. +Why take the trouble to govern yourselves when your vital interests are +so well directed by the higher governments, of Progress, of economic +Forces, of heroes and captains of industry who ruled by a sort of divine +right? The less you try to muddle through by means of poor human +instruments in this well-ordered world the better. + +For the limited tasks of self-government, why should special talents be +required? We are still near enough the pioneer age to adhere to pioneer +conceptions. Roosevelt, unfortunately, is the national ideal. + +We look hopefully for great amateurs like him among insurance agents, +building contractors, lawyers, country editors, bankers, retiring, with +modest fortunes made, into public life. We put the jack of all trades +everywhere. Into the Presidency--and I don't know why we should not in +that office, for it is a waste of material and a misdirection of effort +in self-government to throw away a first-class public man on a four-year +job. Into the Senate and the House, into the Cabinet, where a lawyer +without previous experience of international affairs conducts our +foreign relations in the most difficult period of the world's history, +matching the power of his country against the wits of other countries' +practiced representatives, and thus obtaining a certain forbearance of +their extreme skill. + +Into the diplomatic posts, where an editor, Colonel Harvey, noted only +for his audacity, holds the most important ambassadorship. Those who +have seen the Colonel at meetings of the Supreme Council tell the +amazing story that he was a silent and uneasy figure in the conferences +of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Briand, perhaps because he is only an +observer, perhaps also because he was in the company of practiced +statesmen and diplomats. + +However, our system has its compensations. The picture of the robustious +Colonel uneasy in Zion is one of them. + +In another great diplomatic post is Mr. Richard Washburn Child, a +quantity producer of fiction, or sort of literary Henry Ford. In +another, Paris, the second most important in the world, Mr. Myron +Herrick, a retired business man. Senator Foraker said of him, at a +critical moment of his public career, "_De mortuis nil_." "Don't you +wish to finish that quotation, 'nisi bonum,'" asked the reporter who was +seeking a statement. "No," said the Senator sharply; "De mortuis nil." +Of the ambassador to France nil, except that he comes from Ohio. + +But when we, given all these causes for the weakness of Congress, the +frail hold which the idea of self-government has upon the popular mind, +the unimportance of the taxing power, the tendency to concentrate on the +executive at the expense of the legislative, the obstacles to ability +which mediocrity has erected in Congress, we have not explained the +present extraordinary confusion and demoralization in the legislative +branch. Most of these causes have been operating for some time, yet +Congress has been able to function. Only since Mr. Harding became +President has the breakdown of Congress been marked. + +If you ask observers in Washington why the last Congress failed more +completely than any of its predecessors, with one voice they reply: +"Lack of leadership." Everybody cackles of leadership as if lack of +leadership were a cause and not a symptom. What is it that makes a +leader and followers unless it is a common purpose? + +[Illustration: REPRESENTATIVE FREDERICK H. GILLETT OF MASSACHUSETTS] + +The weakness of Mr. Harding, Mr. Lodge, Speaker Gillett, Mr. Mondell +lies partly in themselves, but it is made more apparent by the +difficulties that confront them. It traces back to the uncertainties +in the national mind. Who could lead representatives of taxpayers +staggering under the costs of the war and representatives of soldiers +striving to lay an added burden on the taxpayers? Who could lead +representatives of farmers who demand that a large share of the credit +available in this country be mobilized by the government for the +subvention of agriculture and representatives of commerce and +manufacture who wish to keep the government from competing with them for +the stock of credit? Or labor which insists that the way to improve +business is by stimulating demand at home through liberal wages, +increasing consumption; and the other classes which insist that the way +to restore business is by making increased consumption possible to them +through lower prices only to be accomplished through lower wages? The +conflict runs across party lines. The old rallying cries fall on deaf +ears. + +The Republican party was based on the common belief that government +favors delivered at the top percolated down, by a kind of gravity that +operated with rough justice, to all levels of society, like water from a +reservoir on a hill reaching all the homes of a city. When you called +for loyalty to that you called for loyalty to everybody's stomach, +expressed in the half-forgotten phrase: "The full dinner pail." + +Now, the various elements of society are doubtful of what may reach them +by the force of gravity from the top. Each insists that government +favor shall enter at its level and be diffused from that center. Would +you make the nation happy and rich, give the soldiers a +five-billion-dollar bonus and start them buying? Give the farmers a +several-billion-dollar guarantee of their staples and start prosperity +on the farm. Give labor high wages and start prosperity there by +stimulating consumption. Give the consumer lower prices by cutting wages +and start prosperity there. Shift the burden of taxation somewhat from +wealth and start prosperity once more in the good old way by favors at +the top. + +One might compare the breakup that has occurred in this country to the +breakup that took place in Russia after the first revolution, the +peaceful and ineffective revolution of 1905. All parties in Russia +united against absolutism. A measure of representative government being +established and the main object of the revolution being achieved, all +parties fell to quarrelling among themselves as to which should profit +most by the new institutions. + +Under Mr. Roosevelt and his successors a mild revolution was +accomplished. People turned against economic absolutism. They had begun +to question the unregulated descent of favors from the top. They doubted +the force of gravity that used to fill dinner pails. They demanded some +representation in the process of filling dinner pails. They set up a +government at Washington to control credit and transportation. + +And now they have fallen apart over who shall pay the taxes, who shall +have use of the credit, who shall profit by lowered freight rates, +rebates in principle, special favors in transportation, under a new +name. + +When men today deplore the lack of leadership they are comparing Mr. +Harding with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Lodge and Mr. Mondell +with Senator Hanna and Senator Aldrich. Today's chiefs of state are of +smaller stature. Mr. Harding has been a drifter all his life; he has not +the native force of Mr. Roosevelt, the sheer vitality which gloried in +overcoming obstacles. He has not the will of Mr. Wilson. The petulant +Lodge is not the same order of being as the brutal, thick-necked Hanna, +or the more finished but still robust Aldrich. + +But beyond this personal superiority which the leaders of the past had, +they enjoyed the advantage of standing upon sure ground. Mr. Hanna +belonged to that fortunate generation which never doubted, whether it +was in religion or morals or politics. He may not have put it so to +himself, but behind everything that he did lay the tacit assumption that +the business system was divinely ordained. The hand of Providence was +conspicuous everywhere in America's rise, but nowhere more than in the +rapid turning, unprecedented in the world's history, of minerals and +forests into a civilization. + +In times of daily miracles it is easy to believe. Mr. Hanna believed, +the public believed, Congress believed. Mr. Hanna spoke for this +divinely ordained system which was developing an undeveloped continent +as one had never been in the memory of man, making us all richer, with a +certain rough justice, according to our deserts. + +He himself was a pioneer. He himself had created wealth. He knew the +creators of wealth. He delivered the commandments handed down to him on +the mountain. With God so much on his side a much lesser man than Hanna +would have been a great leader. God isn't on the side of Mr. Lodge. That +is the difference. + +Mr. Aldrich represented a less pure faith. What had been a primitive +religion had become an established church. He had behind him a power of +organization in business and Congress that Hanna had not. The public may +have been less faithful; still the religion he represented was the +official religion. + +Like Hanna, he was rich and a creator of wealth; in addition he was +connected by marriage with the richest family in the United States. He +was the spokesman of business, and even if faith was decaying no one +seriously questioned the sacred character of business as the instrument +of Providence for making America great, rich, and free. + +The chief aim was the creation of wealth. No one could doubt that the +business organization was accomplishing it with unparalleled success. +Perhaps the heads of the business organization kept a little too much of +the newly created wealth to themselves, but at least everyone shared in +it and it was wise to let well enough alone. Where there is such +substantial unity as existed at that time, no great personal qualities +are required for leadership. + +And Mr. Aldrich was not endowed with great personal qualities. He has +been gone from Washington only a dozen years, and yet no tradition of +him survives except that he managed the Senate machine efficiently. In +type he was the business executive. He represented more fully than +anyone else in the Senate the one great interest of the country. He +stood for a reality, and it gave him tremendous power. + +His mind was one of ordinary range. He traded in tariff schedules and +erected majorities upon the dispensing of favors. He bestowed public +buildings and river improvements in return for votes. Leaders have not +now these things to give or have them in insufficient quantities and on +too unimportant a scale. + +No great piece of constructive legislation serves to recall him. +Primarily a man of business, he nevertheless attached his name to the +grotesque Aldrich-Vreeland currency act. The work of the monetary +commission of which he was the head, and which led to the present +Federal Reserve Law, was the work of college professors and economists. + +Naturally a better leader than Mr. Lodge because he met men more easily +upon a common ground and had more vitality than the Massachusetts +Senator has, he was no better leader than any one of half a dozen +present Senators would be if the aim of business were accepted today by +the country as the great social aim, as it was in his day, and if any +one of the six now spoke for business in the Senate as in his time he +did. + +Give Mr. Brandegee or Mr. Lenroot or Mr. Wadsworth a people accepting +that distribution which worked out from extending to the heads of the +business organization every possible favor and immunity, as the +distribution best serving the interests of all, and add unto him plenty +of public buildings and river improvements, and he could lead as well as +Mr. Aldrich. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTERLUDE. INTRODUCING A FEW MEMBERS OF THE UPPER HOUSE BOOBOISIE AND +SOME OTHERS + + +There is a saying that in American families there is only three or four +generations from riches to shirt sleeves. Mr. Hanna is the first +generation, Mr. Aldrich is the second generation. In Mr. Penrose and Mr. +Lodge you reach what is a common phase of American family history, the +eccentric generation. And in Senator Jim Watson and Senator Charles +Curtis, who are just coming on the scene as "leaders," you reach once +more political shirt sleeves. + +The American family dissipating its patrimony, produces invariably the +son who is half contemptuous of the old house that founded his fortunes, +who is half highbrow, who perhaps writes books as well as keeping them, +or it may be bolts to the other side altogether. + +So the Hanna-Aldrich stock produced Henry Cabot Lodge, a sort of +political James Hazen Hyde, who stayed at home and satisfied his longing +for abroad by serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But +perhaps it would be fairer to Mr. Lodge to say of him what a witty +friend of mine did, "Lodge is what Henry James would have been if Henry +James had remained in America and gone into politics." Or he is what +Henry Adams might have been if Henry Adams had been less honest in his +contempt for democracy. + +The last leaf of that New England tree whose fruit was an expatriate +literature and expatriate lives, the limit of Mr. Lodge's expatriation +was an interest in foreign affairs when redder-blooded Americans were +happily ignorant of them. If business had been choosing spokesmen at +Washington it would no more have picked out Mr. Lodge than it would have +picked out James Hazen Hyde or Henry James. Mr. Lodge's leadership was a +sign of decay. + +But some will say business at this time had Senator Penrose as its +spokesman. I doubt it. Senator Penrose was that other son of the family +in whose blood runs all the ancestral energies without the ancestral +restraint. + +By the time he achieved prominence business in politics was no longer +quite respectable. People said, creating the Penrose legend, "Why, +Penrose would stop at nothing. He'd even represent the selfish interests +here in Washington." Therefore it was considered that he must represent +them. And he did to an extent, speaking for Henry C. Frick and some +others of Pennsylvania, but he was in no adequate sense the successor +of Aldrich and Hanna. + +Had business chosen a spokesman at Washington, he must have been +respectable. Hanna was that most respectable of Americans, the highly +successful man who has played for and won a great fortune. Aldrich was +that equally respectable American, the conservative manager of the +established corporation. + +There is a story that when Penrose became boss of Pennsylvania the +Republican politicians of the State were anxious about the effect his +personal reputation would have upon the voters. Finally they went to +him, as the elders sometimes go to the young parson, and said, "The +organization thinks the people would like it better if you were +married," "All right, boys, if you think so," Penrose replied; "let the +organization pick the gal." The organization recoiled from this +cynicism. But business is harder. Business, if it had really identified +itself with Penrose, would have "picked the gal." + +No better evidence of the tenuity of his connection with business is +required than his outbreak in 1920, "I won't have the international +bankers write the platform and nominate the candidate at Chicago." + +Mr. Penrose enjoyed a "_succes de scandale_." He was what the hypocrites +in Washington secretly desired to be but lacked the courage to be. He +lived up to the aristocratic tradition, at its worst; which everyone +admires, especially at its worst. He did on a grand scale what anyone +else would have been damned for doing on a lesser scale and was loved +for being so splendidly shocking. + +He was the village sport, with the best blood of the village in his +veins, and was the village delight, the man about whom all the best +stories were whispered. He had the clear mind which comes from scorn of +pretense. But all this is not greatness, nor is it leadership. The +Republicans in the Senate before being led by Mr. Penrose would have +insisted on "picking the gal." They like to see framed marriage +certificates in the party household. + +The patrimony is gone and we reach shirt sleeves in Senator Charles +Curtis and Senator James Watson, one of whom will succeed Mr. Lodge when +he dies, retires, or is retired, and the other of whom will succeed Mr. +Cummins as president pro tem when he similarly disposes of himself or is +disposed of. + +Neither of them has the stature or solidity of Hanna or Aldrich, and +they will not have supporting them unity in party or in national +sentiment. Neither of them has the romantic quality of Mr. Penrose or +Mr. Lodge. Neither of them will ever be a leader in any real sense of +the word. Neither of them will have anything to lead. + +As frequently happens when you reach shirt sleeves by the downward +route, you find the accumulative instinct reasserting itself on a petty +scale. Look at the rather shabby clothes that Senator Curtis wears, in +spite of his considerable wealth, and you are sure that you have to do +with a hoarder. And that is what he is; a hoarder of political minutiae. + +Current report is that he is the best poker player in either house of +Congress. You can imagine him sitting across the table watching the +faces of his antagonists with a cold eye, which no tremor of a muscle, +no faint coming or going of color, no betraying weakness escapes. + +That is his forte in politics, knowing all the little things about men +which reveal their purposes or operate in unexpected ways as hidden +motives. + +He has a perfect card catalogue of nearly all the voters of Kansas. It +is kept up to date. It reports not merely names and addresses but +personal details, the voter's point of view, what interests him, what +influences may be brought to bear on him. Curtis is a hoarder, with an +amazing capacity for heaping up that sort of information. + +His mind is a card catalogue of the Senate, vastly more detailed than +the card catalogue of Kansas. He watches the Senate as he watches the +faces of his antagonist in a poker game. He knows the little +unconsidered trifles which make men vote this way and that. And he is so +objective about it all that he rarely deceives himself. If into this +concern with the small motives which move men there crept a certain +contempt of humanity he might mislead himself; he might be hateful, too; +but his objectivity saves him; he is as objective as a card catalogue +and no more hateful. + +But you see how far short all this falls from leadership, or +statesmanship, or greatness of any description. Usefulness is there +certainly; card catalogues are above all useful, especially when there +is variety and diversity to deal with, as there is coming to be in a +Senate ruled by blocs and frequented by undisciplined individualism. + +If Curtis kept a journal he would hand down to posterity a most perfect +picture of men and motives in Washington,--if, again, posterity should +be interested in the fleeting and inconsiderable figures who fill the +national capital "in this wicked and adulterous generation seeking for a +sign"--I am quoting the Bible trained Secretary of State in one of his +petulant moments. + +If he had the malice of Saint Simon, the journal would be diverting, but +he is without malice. He has no cynical conception of men's weakness and +smallness as something to play upon. He accepts Senators as they are, +sympathetically. What makes them vote this way and that is the major +consideration of politics. His records of the Kansas electorate are more +important to him than principles, policies, or morals. The efficient +election district Captain of the Senate, that is Curtis. + +A more likely successor to Lodge is "Jim" Watson of Indiana. I attended +a theatrical performance in Washington recently. Nearby sat the Indiana +Senator. His neighbor, whom I did not recognize, doubtless some +politician from Indiana, sat with his arm about Watson's neck, before +the curtain rose, pouring confidences into Watson's ear. + +Watson is given to public embraces. His arm falls naturally about an +interlocutor's shoulders or, and this is important as showing that Jim +is not merely patronizing, descending affectionately from the great +heights of the Senatorship, Jim himself, as at the theatre, is the +object of the embrace. But perhaps that is finer condescension. + +If the characteristic gesture of Lodge is the imperious clapping of his +hands for the Senate pages and the revealing trait of Curtis is +extraordinary intuition about the cards in other hands around the +lamp-lit table, the soul of Watson is in the embrace. His voice is a +caress. He kisses things through. He never errs in personal relations, +if you like to be embraced--and most men do, by greatness. + +In one of his less successful moments he represented, at Washington the +National Manufacturers' Association, at that time a rather shady +organization of lesser business men. If he had not been the orator that +he is he would have been with that circumambulatory arm of his, an +inevitable lobbyist. + +For Watson is an orator, of the old school, the Harding school. They +employ the same loose style of speech, flabby as unused muscles, words +that come into your head because you have often heard them on the stump +and in the Senate, and read them in country editorials, words that have +long lost their precise meaning but evoke the old pictures in the minds +of an emotional and unthinking electorate. At this art of emitting a +long rumble of speech which is not addressed to the mind Watson has no +equal. + +It is an American art and puzzling to foreigners. Vice-Admiral Kato, not +the head of the Japanese delegation but the second Kato, had enough +English to remark it. "Your President," he said, "is a charming man, but +why does he put such funny things in his speeches?" + +In the mere mastery of this kind of English Mr. Harding may equal +Watson, but as an orator the Indianian has what the President never had; +the unctuous quality in him which makes him embrace readily lets him +pour out his soul freely. He has thunders in his voice, he tosses his +head with its fuzzy hair magnificently, he has gusto. He has +imagination. He is a big, lovable if not wholly admirable, boy playing +at oratory, playing at statesmanship, playing above all at politics. +Nothing is very real to him, not even money; he put all he had into an +irrigation project and left it there. Just now he irrigates with the +tears in his voice the arid places in the Republican party where +loyalty should grow. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JOSEPH S FRELINGHUYSEN OF NEW JERSEY] + +I present these characterizations of Senate leaders, past, present, and +future, to indicate through them what the Senate itself is, and to +suggest what conditions have given quite ordinary men power and how +feeble leadership has become, with the country no longer agreed how best +to promote the general good, and with Congress as it has been in recent +years a relatively unimportant factor in the national government. + +Senator Platt used to say of an habitual candidate for nomination to the +governorship of New York, Timothy L. Woodruff, "Well, it may taper down +to Tim." We have "tapered down to Tim,"--or rather to "Jim"--in the +Senate because as a people we have been indifferent and unsure, and +because there has been little use for anything but "Tims" or "Jims" in +Washington. Nature seems to abhor a waste in government. + +Those who ascribe all the troubles in Congress to lack of leadership, +and go no further, blame the poverty of our legislative life upon the +popular election of Senators and upon the choice of candidates at direct +primaries. But the decay began before the system changed. We resorted to +new methods of nomination and election because the old methods were +giving us Lorimers and Addickses. Probably we gained nothing, but we +lost little. + +Big business, so long as the taxing power, through the imposition of +the tariff, was important to it, and so long as it was accepted as the +one vital interest of the country, saw to it that it was effectively +represented in Congress. It was then somebody's job to see that at least +some solid men went to Washington. It has of late been nobody's job. +There has been no real competition for seats in the national +legislature. + +The Senate has tempted small business men who can not arise to the level +of national attention through their control of industry, and small +lawyers similarly restricted in their efforts for publicity. It is an +easily attained national stage. + +It appeals to that snobbish instinct--of wives sometimes--which seeks +social preferment not to be obtained in small home towns, or denied +where family histories are too well known. + +It allures the politician, bringing opportunity to play the favorite +game of dispensing patronage and delivering votes, with the added pomp +of a title. + +It is the escape of the aristocrat, whose traditions leave him the +choice between idleness and what is called "public service." + +It is the escape of the successful man who has found his success empty +and tries to satisfy the unsatisfied cravings of his nature. Such men +"retire" into it, as it was reported to President Harding's indignation +that one of the Chicago banker candidates for the Secretaryship of the +Treasury wished to retire into the Cabinet. Some enter it for one of +these motives, more from a combination of them, but, generally, it is +the promised land of the bored, some of whom find it only a mirage. + +A typical Senator is Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, one of the smaller +business men being drawn into public life. Son of a country minister, he +started as an insurance agent. Nature equipped him with unusual energy +and aggressiveness and those two qualities brought success in writing +insurance. Nothing in his early training inhibited his robust +temperament. Ruddy and vigorous, he is not sicklied o'er with any pale +cast whatever. Plainly he has a zest for life, that easily accessible +American life where good mixers abound. + +Not a highbrow, he yet recognizes that literature has its place, on all +four walls of a large room, and bought in sets. + +Having the American horror of loneliness, whether social or moral, you +find him always going along with his party. When his set divides he +balances between the two factions as long as possible and elects to go +with the more numerous. Simple, likable, honest, safe so long as +majorities are safe, and that is the theory we are working on, he is the +average man in everything but his aggressiveness and energy. + +No, he also rises above the average in possessing such a name as +Frelinghuysen. You enter his library and you see a banner of the +campaign of Clay and Frelinghuysen. He will recite to you campaign +songs of those unsuccessful candidates for President and Vice-President. +Another Frelinghuysen was a Cabinet member. Another Frelinghuysen, of +the wealthier branch of the family, has an assured social position. + +None of these famous Frelinghuysens is an ancestor. Each of them is a +challenge. If he could have found an ancestor! If an insurance company +were a high place from which to survey the world at one's feet! But, no! +Ancestors, power, publicity, social prestige, all lie beyond the reach +of small business success. + +In the Senate men, important men, come to you for favors; it is so much +better than going to them to write policies. From the Senatorship you +condescend; there really is a world to which a Senator can condescend. +Washington is a social melting pot. No one asks whether you are one of +the Blanks. You are Senator Blank and that is enough. And if you are so +fortunate, by your very averageness, to attach yourself to the average +man whose fortune makes him President, and you become one of the Harding +Senators, one of the intimates, you are lifted up: like Bottom, you are +translated. You are the familiar of greatness. + +As a legislator you deal with policies, international and domestic, in +the realm of ideas--as when you sit in your library, four square with +all the wisdom of the ages. + +If you have enough of the boy about you, like Frelinghuysen, you enjoy +all this hugely. You have projected your ego beyond the limits of the +insurance business. You look among the branches of the Frelinghuysen +family tree without losing countenance. Who knows that there won't be +another "and Frelinghuysen" ticket, this time a successful one? + +Not every senator has escaped so nearly from the failures which attend +success as has Frelinghuysen. Nor is his escape complete. A sense of +unreality haunts him. Aggressiveness in his case covers it, as it so +often does a feeling of weakness. After he has blustered through some +utterance, he will buttonhole you and ask, "Did I make a damn fool of +myself? Now, the point I was trying to make was, etc. Did I get it +clear? Or did I seem like a damn fool?" + +Less agile minded than Senator Edge, he watches the motions of his New +Jersey colleague as a fascinated bird watches those of a snake or a cat. +Intellectually he is not at ease, even in the Senate. + +Another of the Harding set is Harry New of Indiana, one of the "Wa'al +naow" school of statesmen, in dress and speech the perfect county +chairman of the stage. The broad-brimmed black felt hat, winter and +summer, has withstood all the insidious attacks of fashion. The nasal +voice has equally resisted all the temptations to conformity with the +softer tones which are now everywhere heard. In politics one has to be +regular, and New has the impulse to individuality, which with Borah and +LaFollette manifests itself in political isolation. With New it +manifests itself in hat and speech. New thus remains a person, not +merely a clothes-horse which is recorded "aye" when Mr. Lodge votes +"aye" and "no" when Mr. Lodge votes "no." But this is hardly fair. Mr. +New has been irregular in other ways. He has not made money; he has lost +it, a fortune in a stone quarry. He is indifferent to it. This marks him +as a person. He would rather whip a stream for trout than go after +dollars with a landing net. + +Whipping a stream for trout is the clue to Harry New. If you are a +fisherman you impute all sorts of wiles to the fish. You match your wits +against the sharp wits under the water, and your ego is fortified when, +the day being dark and your hand being cunning, you land a mess from the +stream. The world is a trout stream to New. The hat and the nasal accent +are the good old flies that Isaak Walton recommended. + +There is the type of mind which sees craft where others see simplicity. +We associate shrewdness with the kind of hat New wears and the kind of +voice he has preserved against the seductions of politeness. It is one +of our rural traditions. Suppose shrewdness that asks no more than +conversation and a small mess of fish. It is delightful. As we listen to +it arriving after the most penetrating exposition at the same +conclusions which we have reached directly and stupidly, we are +flattered. We realize that we, too, are shrewd, unconsciously so, as, +wasn't it Moliere's bourgeois gentleman, who learned that he was +unconsciously a gentleman, since he had been doing all his life some of +the things that gentlemen did? + +A playboy of the western plains, New would be happier if his colleague, +Jim Watson, did not also take himself seriously as a politician. "Jim," +says New, "is an orator, a great orator, but he ought to let politics +alone; as a politician he is, like all orators a child." + +New is no orator. A fair division would be for Watson to be the orator +and New the politician. But no one is ready to admit that he is no +politician. For New politics is craft; for Watson it is embraces. At a +dinner in Indiana, New contrived to have his rival for the senatorship, +Beveridge, and the politically outlawed Mayor of Indianapolis, Lew +Shank, not invited. Watson would have led them both in with an arm +around the neck of each. That individualism which makes New preserve the +hat and the accent makes him punish foes, or is it that the sense of +being "close to Harding" robs him of discretion? + +In the board of aldermen of any large city you will find a dozen +Calders, local builders or contractors, good fellows who have the gift +of knowing everyone in their districts, who by doing little favors here +and there get themselves elected to the municipal legislature; they see +that every constituent gets his street sign and sidewalk encumbrance +permits, interview the police in their behalf when necessary, and the +bright young men who compose the traditional humor of the daily press +refer to them gaily as "statesmen." + +The art of being a Senator like Calder is the art of never saying "no." +He is worth mentioning because he has the bare essentials of +senatorship, the habit of answering all letters that come to him, the +practice of introducing by request all bills that anyone asks to have +introduced, industry in seeking all jobs and favors that anyone comes to +him desiring. + +He "goes to the mat" for everybody and everything. He shakes everybody's +hand. He is a good news source to representatives of the local press and +is paid for his services in publicity. New York is populous and sent +many soldiers to the late war. Nevertheless, the mother or father of a +soldier from that state who did not receive a personal letter from +Calder must have eluded the post office. + +He votes enthusiastically for everything that everybody is for. He is +unhappy when he has to take sides on sharply debated issues. Morality is +a question of majorities. He finds safety in numbers. + +[Illustration: SENATOR HARRY S. NEW OF INDIANA] + +Nature was not kind to Calder; it left him with no power to throw a +bluff. He is plainly what he is. He has neither words nor manner. His +colleagues look down on him a little. But most of them are after all +only Calder plus, and plus, generally speaking, not so very much. He is +the Senator reduced to the lowest terms. + +Calder is timid, more timid than Frelinghuysen with his eternal +buttonholing you to ask what impression he has made, more timid than +anyone except Kellogg of Minnesota. The latter is in a constant state of +flutter. Little and wisplike physically he seems to blow about with +every breeze of politics. He is so unsure that his nerves are always on +edge, in danger of breaking. When he was balancing political +consequences over nicely during the League of Nations discussion, +Ex-President Taft said to him impatiently: "The trouble with you, Frank, +is that you have no guts." Kellogg straightened up all his +inches--physically he is a white-haired and bent Will H. Hays--and +replied, "I allow no man to say that to me." He fluttered out, and Mr. +Taft being kind-hearted followed him to apologize. + +If you could analyze the uneasiness of Mr. Kellogg you would understand +the fear which haunts the minds of all Senators. Mr. Kellogg comes to +Washington after an enormously successful career at the bar. He is rich. +He is respected. His place in society is secure. What would the loss of +the senatorship mean to such a man? He ought to have all the confidence +which is supposed to be in the man who rises in the world, all that +which comes from an established position. Unlike most great lawyers who +retire into the Senate, Mr. Kellogg does not merely interest himself in +constitutional questions, like a child with molasses on its fingers +playing with feathers. He is industrious. He interests himself in the +Senate's business. He develops nice scruples which can not be brushed +aside. He wears himself out over them. He hesitates. He trembles. The +certainty with which his mind must have operated in the field of legal +principles deserts him in the field of political expediency. Or perhaps +it is that he sees both principles and expediency and can not choose +between the two. + +Wadsworth of New York is an exception to the general run of Senators. He +belongs by birth to the class which is traditionally free from +hypocrisy. He is not boisterously contemptuous of the slavishness of +Senators as Penrose was. He is quietly contemptuous. His voice has a +note of well-bred impatience in it. He has not Penrose's pleasure in +mere shocking, but he has the aristocratic hatred of moral ostentation. +The kind of thing that is not done is the kind of thing that is not +done. You don't do it and make no parade of your abstinence. Wadsworth +does not open his home to all his New York colleagues in both houses +just because it is politically expedient. His house is his own, and +so is his conscience, which is not surrendered at the demands of woman +suffrage or of the dries. He has courage. He has convictions. He is +lonely. To be otherwise than lonely in the Senate you must be a +Frelinghuysen, an Elkins, a Newberry, a New, a Watson, or a Hale. He +will never be a leader. He has no more place in the Senate as it is than +Lord Robert Cecil, a much larger man, has in the House of Commons as it +is. Both belong to another day and generation. Neither is sure of +anything but himself and each counts the world well lost. Both represent +the aristocratic tradition. + +[Illustration: SENATOR JAMES W. WADSWORTH OF NEW YORK] + +Industry makes Reed Smoot one of the most useful of the Senators. He has +a passion for details. He reads all the bills. He makes himself a master +of the Government's appropriations and expenditures. He exudes figures +from every pore. By temperament Mr. Smoot is unhappy, and he finds cause +of dark foreboding in the mounting costs of government. His voice has a +scolding note. His manner and appearance is that of a village elder. His +heart is sore as he regards the political world about him, its +wastefulness, its consumption of white paper, on leaves to print and on +reports which no one reads. He is the aggrieved parent. "My children," +he seems always to say, "you must mend your ways." He specializes in +misplaced commas. Nothing is too trivial for his all seeing eyes. In +committee he talks much, twice as much as anyone else, about points +which escape the attention of all his colleagues. Senators, wishing to +get through no matter how, regard him as a pest. Only an unimaginative +and uncreative mind can occupy itself as Smoot's does. He is a building +inspector rather than a builder. With his fussiness, his minor prophetic +voice, his holier-than-thou attitude toward waste, he can never be a +leader of the Senate to which the idle apprentice, the good fellow, who +dines out much in the Harding Senatorial set, the small business man +seeking a place in society, give its tone and character. + +One can not present a complete gallery of the Senate in the space of a +single chapter. I have chosen a few characteristic figures, the leaders +past, present, and to come, the small business man who seeks social +preferment or the destruction of a title in Washington, such as Calder +and Frelinghuysen, the politician who likes to play the game better in +the Capitol than at home, like New, the aristocrat who escapes from the +boredom of doing nothing into the boredom of a democratic chamber, the +gradgrind legislator of whom there are few like Smoot, the half party +man, half bloc man like Capper. + +[Illustration: SENATOR WILLIAM M. CALDER OF NEW YORK] + +All of these men belong to a party and are limited by that party's +weakness, its lack of principles, the caution which it has to use in +avoiding the alienation of its loosely held supporters. The party +program is something on which all kinds of people can stand. Necessarily +the party men in the Senate are tied down to a cause that is largely +negative. They can not be other than feeble and ineffective figures. + +The weakness of parties has led to the emergence of a few outstanding +individual Senators who must be examined to see whether around them the +new Senate which will come with the shift of power and responsibility to +the legislative branch can be built. The most brilliant and interesting +of them is Senator Borah, but it is significant that the farm bloc +looking for a leader did not turn to him, but chose rather much less +significant and effective men. + +Yet the Idaho Senator seems the natural rallying point for any movement +which will give new life and force to the Senate. He is established. He +is the most potent single individual in the upper house. So far as there +is any opposition to President Harding and his friends, Mr. Borah is +that opposition. His is the intelligence which inspires the Democratic +party when it consents to be inspired by intelligence. He believes that +the revolution has come, not one of street fighting and bomb throwing +but a peaceful change which has made the old parties meaningless, +destroyed the old authorities and set men free for the new grouping that +is to take place. Others in the Senate see this and are frightened. +Borah sees it and is glad. His bonds are loosed and he is a vastly +braver, sincerer and more effective Senator than ever before. + +It is absurd to use the word radical of Borah, Johnson, or LaFollette, +for none of them is truly radical; but if one must do so for the lack of +any better term, then Borah is the conservatives' radical. The angriest +reactionary remains calm when his name is mentioned, perhaps because +Borah never gets into a passion himself and never addresses himself to +popular prejudice. He is not a mob orator. He is impersonal in his +appeals. No one any longer suspects him of an ambition to be President. +He seems, like a hermit, to have divorced himself from the earthly +passions of politics and to have become pure intellect operating in the +range of public affairs. He is almost a sage while still a Senator. + +If we had the custom of electing our Ex-Presidents to the Senate, you +can imagine one of them, beyond the average of intelligence, freed from +ambition through having filled the highest office, occupying a place +like that of Borah. + +Borah perhaps likes it too well ever to descend into the market place +and become a leader. His is an enviable lot, for he is the most nearly +free man in Washington; why should he exchange the immunity he possesses +for a small group of followers? Besides he believes in the power of +oratory rather than in the power of organization. He said to me at the +Republican Convention of 1916, "I could stampede this crowd for +Roosevelt." The crowd was thoroughly organized against Roosevelt. + +Nature made him an orator, one of the greatest in the country. And he +has come to be satisfied with the gift he has. The unimportance of his +state, Idaho, has freed him from any illusions about himself with +respect to the Presidency. The habit of carrying a comb in his vest +pocket marks him as free from the social ambitions which number more +victims in the Senate than the ambition for the presidency. He is almost +a disembodied spirit politically, of the revolution he discerns he will +be a spectator. + +Hiram Johnson is a declining figure. I see no reason to modify the +conclusion which was reached about him in the _Mirrors of Washington_, +that he thought more of men than of principles and especially of one +man, Johnson. The test of his sincerity came when the vote was reached +on the unseating of Senator Newberry for spending too much money in the +Michigan primaries. + +Johnson's great issue a year before had been sanctity of popular +nominations. Yet when he had an opportunity to speak and act against a +brazen even though foolish attempt to buy a nomination, he was rushing +wildly across the continent, arriving after the vote had been taken. + +On reaching Washington, he called his newspaper friends before him to +explain the difficulties and delays that had made him late. When he had +finished a nasal voice from the press remarked, "Senator, there will be +great public sympathy with you as a victim of the railroads. But the +people will only know how great their loss has been if you will tell +them now how you would have voted if you had been here." Johnson +adjourned the meeting hastily without a reply. + +The absence from the roll call and the theatrical attempt to make it +appear accidental were typical. Johnson had won the Michigan primaries +in the national campaign of 1920. The delegates were in control of +Newberry's political friends. They remained firm for Johnson throughout +the balloting. Johnson avoided voting against their leader although his +principles required that he should lead the fight for his unseating. + +Johnson has always over-emphasized Johnson. At the Progressive +convention in 1912 when Roosevelt was nominated for the Presidency and +Johnson for the Vice-Presidency, it was proposed, since both were in +attendance, to bring both on the stage and introduce them to the +delegates. The natural order was Roosevelt first, since he was the +nominee for President and since he was, moreover, one of the most +distinguished figures in the world, and Johnson, since he had second +place, second. But Johnson would go second to no man. Either he must +show himself on the stage first or not at all. Finally it was +compromised by presenting them together at the same moment, holding +hands upon the platform. + +Johnson can never see himself in proper perspective. At the Progressive +convention he was more important than Roosevelt. In the Newberry case +his political fortunes were more important than honest primaries. + +Senator Reed of Missouri is possessed of a devil. He is a satirist +turned politician. He has the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift. American life +with its stupidity, its facile optimism, its gullibility, its easy +compromises, its hypocrisy, fills him with rage. His face is shot red +with passion. His voice is angry. He is a defeated idealist left in this +barren generation without an ideal. He might have been led away by the +war as so many were, as Wilson was, into the belief that out of its +sufferings would come a purified and elevated humanity. But Reed is hard +to lead away. Where other men see beauty and hope he searches furiously +for sham. Where other men say cheerfully half a loaf is better than no +bread he puts the half loaf on the scales and proves that it is short +weight. + +An old prosecuting attorney, he believes that guilt is everywhere. He is +always out for a conviction. If the evidence is insufficient he uses all +the arts, disingenuous presentations, appeals to prejudice, not because +he is indifferent to justice but because the accused ought to be hanged +anyway, and he is not going to let lack of evidence stand in the way of +that salutary consummation. + +He conducts a lifelong and passionate fight against the American +practice of "getting away with it." Shall Hoover get away with it as a +great and pure man, the benefactor of the race! Not while Jim Reed has +breath in his body! Here is an American idol, tear it down, exhibit its +clay feet! Shall Wilson "get away with it," with his League of Nations +and his sublimated world set free from all the baser passions of the +past? Not while any acid remains on Jim Reed's tongue! + +Reed is sincere. He hates sham. He nevertheless himself uses sham to +fight sham. He is the nearest thing to a great satirist this country has +developed. And the amazing consideration is that in a nation which +dislikes satire a satirist should be elected by the suffrage of his +fellows. + +Probably it is only in politics that we tolerate satire. In +self-government we only half believe. We are divided in our own minds. +We make laws furiously and laugh at the laws we make. We pretend that +the little men of politics are great and then privately we indicate our +real perception of the truth by telling how small they are. Politics is +suspect and it stamps you as a person of penetration to show that you +are aware what sham and dishonesty there is in them. It is almost as +good an evidence of a superior mind as to say, "Of course I don't +believe what I read in the newspapers." Now satire is enjoyed by +superior minds, and it is only with regard to politics that we as a +people have superior minds, politics not being like business the pursuit +of honest everyday folk. + +Jim Reed is then that part of ourselves which tells us that +self-government is a good deal of a sham, in the hands of amusing +charlatans. We tolerate him in perhaps the only place where we would +tolerate a satirist, in the Senate. And in the Senate they fear him. + +He was attacking the Four Power Pact. "People say," he declared, "that +this ends the Anglo-Japanese alliance. I do not find it in the pact. I +do not find it nominated in the bond," he shouted. And the friends of +the pact sat silent afraid of Reed's power as a debater, until Senator +Lenroot having studied the document several minutes in the cloakroom +read the plain language of the agreement to end the alliance. Reed +almost "got away with it" himself. But this is not leadership. One does +not follow a satirist. One makes him a privileged character at most. + +Reed and Borah are privileged characters each in his own way. The +privilege of being "queer" is as old as the herd itself. The harmless +insane man was almost sacred in primitive society. The "fool" was the +only man whose disrespect did not amount to _lese majeste_. The wisdom +of the "fool" was regarded with a certain awe and admiration. But the +death rate among those who sought this franchise must have been high. +It must be personality which decides who survives and achieves this +license and who does not, a nice capacity for adjustment, a rare sense +of what the crowd will endure. Borah and Reed have it, LaFollette has +not or has not chosen to exercise it. + +George Moore somewhere says that if you can convince a woman that it is +all play, all Pan and nymph, between you and her, you have the perfect +way of a man with a maid, when his aim is something short of matrimony. +But if you are too serious about it--! LaFollette is perhaps too serious +about it. If he could have said what he had to say with a laugh and so +as to raise a laugh he might have been privileged like Reed, or, if he +had to be serious, he should have been serious like Borah, in a detached +and impersonal fashion; then perhaps he might still have been something +less than the public enemy that he is. But LaFollette is serious, +terribly serious, terribly in earnest. He has had convictions, clung to +them, and probably suffered more for them than any man in Washington. + +The Wisconsin Senator is one of the least understood men in public life. +In the Senate he speaks violently, with a harsh voice and an excess of +manner. He is small and some of this loudness and emphasis is no doubt +that compensation for lack of stature and presence to which men +unconsciously resort; some of it is an exterior which has been +cultivated to cover up an unusually shy and sensitive heart. The +character in history and fiction which most intrigues him is Hamlet, +that gentle soul unfit for life. He has spent years studying the shy +Dane. He himself is a Hamlet who has taken up arms against a sea of +troubles. The "queer" man who would gain a franchise for his "queerness" +must not be sensitive. The crowd likes better to persecute than to +tolerate. + +Then too LaFollette entered the Senate when minorities were less +tolerable than they are today. He got the stamp of impossible when +Roosevelt led a movement in his direction and he refused to be a part of +it. Thus he became isolated, neither Progressive nor Old Guard. You can +not safely be too uncompromising, too serious. It makes no difference if +you were right in rejecting both wings of the party as reactionary which +they speedily proved to be. It makes no difference if you were right in +opposing the war, and no one is so sure today that LaFollette was wrong +in doing so as men were when it was proposed to expel him from the +Senate. Justification after the fact does no good. It is not your +wrongness that they hate; it's your uncompromising quality, and that +remains more unbreakable than ever. + +An unusual loyalty explains the unwillingness to compromise. LaFollette +attaches himself deeply. A characteristic act was his leaving the Senate +for months to nurse a sick son back to health. It sets him apart from +most men, who do not let sickness in the family interfere with their +business and perform their full duty when they hire a trained nurse. +People think of LaFollette, the public man, as an egoist but this +nursing of his son showed the utmost absence of egoism. And so it is +with all his intimate relations, which are unusually sweet and tender. + +Whatever he is like privately, publicly he is placed, rated, catalogued; +the general mind is made up. The farm bloc no more turned to him than to +Borah for leadership. He will always remain isolated. + +Now that party discipline has been broken down, what nonconformist +Senators suffer most from is the tyranny of the teapot. Senator Kenyon +referred to it when he said Newberry on trial for fitness for his seat +"floated back into the Senate on an ocean of tea." An unparliamentary +version of the same reference to the social influence is: "The Senate is +one long procession of dinners and hootch." + +If you are regular politically you are regular socially. Given the habit +of voting with the crowd, of putting others at ease by a not too great +display of intellect, a good cook, a pre-war cellar, and a not +impossible wife, and you belong to the Senatorial middle class, the new +rich insurance agents, lawyers, miners, and manufacturers who control +the fate of the socially ambitious. You may not be invited to the +Wadsworths', or may be seldom asked there. But you are accepted by what +Mencken might call the wealthy "booboisie," the circle Mr. Harding +frequented before he was advanced to the White House. + +If you don't you are of the Senatorial proletariat. You are invited out +seldom or not at all. You have to organize a little set of +intellectuals, not found in the Senate, for your wife's tea parties. + +Senator Kenyon was a moderate nonconformist. Intellectually he was +honest, but not strong, so that an outsider might have thought that his +honesty and independence would be overlooked. But he was never accepted +by the "booboisie." He was virtually cold shouldered out of the Senate, +for it was with immense relief that he escaped from teapot ostracism to +the securer social area of the Federal bench. + +I repeat a bit of gossip about the Iowa Senator without vouching for it. +When he was retiring, it is said, a reporter asked, "What can be done +with the Senate?" "Nothing," replied the Iowan, "The only thing to do is +to destroy it." If he said this he really flattered the "booboisie." +Destruction is reserved for wicked things like Sodom and Gomorrah. But +the Senate is not wicked. It is good, honest in the sense of not +stealing, well-meaning, timid, petty, tea-drinking, human, commonplace. +You can't destroy it unless you have something to put in its place, and +there is nothing. Much better turn it over to the blocs and see what +they will do with it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A PEAK OF REALITY THRUSTS UP ON THE LEVEL PLAIN OF SHAMS + + +As well fear blocs and minorities as fear the centrifugal force on the +ground that it is seeking to pull us off the face of the earth. +Minorities are the centrifugal force of politics. They maintain the +balance of forces which makes political existence possible. Without them +the State would become unbearable; it would destroy us or we should be +compelled to destroy it. + +We have just passed through a period, the war, in which minorities were +suppressed, in which the general will brooked no resistance, in which +the bodies of men between certain ages and the minds of men and women of +all ages were brought into compulsory service of the State. The mental +draft dodger went to jail just as much as the physical draft dodger. + +A Chief of an Industrial Workers of the World Longshoremans' Union was +sentenced for twenty years because he was an I. W. W., although under +his direction his organization handled efficiently all the munitions of +war shipped from Philadelphia. He "obstructed the war" by his thoughts +as an I. W. W., even though his actions as a citizen contributed to +success in the war. + +One may tolerate during a national emergency the oppression that results +from the crushing of minorities, but in time of peace it is only in the +balance of political forces that political existence may go on. + +All freedom is the work of minorities and so is all change. Respect for +opinion is dearly bought by them. Majority views were all once minority +views. Some political theorists even go so far as to say that all +governments, no matter what apparent precautions are taken to represent +majorities, are really conducted by minorities. Without the effective +resistance of minorities the general will may become tyrannous or +without the stimulus they afford it may become inert. + +The blocs and minorities that are appearing in American public life are +accomplishing a measure of decentralization. The highly centralized +government which we recently built up is itself passing into the control +of the various economic subdivisions of society. In them rather than in +it is coming to be final authority. + +Take freight rates for an illustration. Originally they were localized, +in the unrestricted control of the railroad managers. Then they were +slightly centralized in the partial control of state and partial +control of national authorities. Then control was wholly centralized in +the Inter-State Commerce Commission at Washington, the States being +denied effective authority even over rates within their own borders. + +There you have bureaucracy at its worst, authority in the hands of an +appointive commission, thousands of miles, in many cases, from the place +where it was applied, and a public feeling its impotence, which is the +negation of self-government. + +Then comes the first step in decentralization. No locality, no State was +big enough to reach out and get back the authority over its own railroad +service that it once had. But the organized farmers of the whole country +were able to take into their hands the power over the railroads as it +affected them. Nominally the Inter-State Commerce Commission still makes +rates. Practically the farmers, having the balance of power in the House +and Senate, say what rates they want on agricultural products and get +them. That is decentralization. + +The division into States which the jealous colonists preserved in +forming the Union has largely lost its significance. Men divide now +according to their interests, not according to boundaries that may be +learned in the school geographies. As the States weakened many of their +powers gradually tended to be centralized in the national government. As +the newer economic subdivisions of society become organized and +self-assertive some of the power thus centralized in Washington +devolves upon them, not legally or formally, but actually and in +practice. They constitute minorities too large to be denied. + +It is only through decentralization that popular institutions can be +kept alive, only through it that government remains near enough to the +people to hold their interest and only through it that freedom from an +oppressive State is preserved. + +Why should minorities be regarded with such aversion? Why should +President Harding declaim against them so persistently? Our Federal +Constitution is written full of safeguards for minorities. The reservoir +of power is in the minorities, the States, the local subdivisions which +feared the loss of their identity and independence through the central +government they were creating. + +Only powers expressly yielded by the local units may be assumed by the +Republic. The States were the minorities; they felt when they joined the +Union that their rights as minorities had to be jealously guarded, in +order that they might have the realities of self-government. + +You have in the rule that the small State must have as many Senators as +the large State a sharp assertion of the right of geographical +minorities. If the larger States had not accepted this principle the +smaller States would never have joined the Union. + +Gradually these geographical minorities lost their importance in the +public consciousness. Our people had come and kept coming to this +country from the ends of the earth. Arriving here they continued to be +nomads, sweeping over the West in search of new pasture lands or more +fertile soil, moving from the farm to the city and thrusting their roots +in nowhere. No difference of language or customs set up arbitrary +frontiers. + +Moreover we were the first people to settle a land where modern methods +of locomotion destroyed the use and wont of limited localities. Instead +of being citizens of New York united with the citizens of New Jersey, +Connecticut, and the rest of them for the common defense, as our +forefathers imagined, we became citizens of the United States, which was +divided into New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the rest for +purposes of policing, road-making, and other functions that could be +better managed at home than from Washington. + +A State began to assume about the same place in the Union that a county +does in a State. + +The basic reality for our forefathers was the State, the Union existing +for the convenience of the States. The basic reality for us is the +Union, the States existing for the convenience of the Union, which is +too vast to administer everything from a central point. + +As the geographical subdivisions lost their significance economic +subdivisions rose to take their place. The farmer of Kansas began to +have more in common with the farmer of Iowa than he had with the coal +miner of his own State. The nationwide organization of farmers resulted, +and it is a more real unit in the political consciousness than is that +unit on which the Fathers laid such stress, the State. It is a minority +that has no reserve rights under the Constitution but which achieves its +rights by force of numbers and organization. + +These economic subdivisions are the reality today. The United States is +a union of the State of Agriculture, the State of Labor, the State of +Manufacturing, and a dozen other occupational States of greater or less +importance. And after all why should not Agriculture, Manufacturing, +Labor, Foreign, and Domestic Commerce form a union for the national +defense, carefully reserving essential powers to themselves as States, +just as the thirteen original colonies did? Why should we let this new +political organism keep us awake nights? + +Nationally we have a complex on the subject of disunion. Fortunate +perhaps is the country which is subject to the pressure of a foreign +enemy on its border, as France is, for example, to that of Germany. If +you have a convenient foe to be afraid of you do not have to be afraid +of yourselves. It seems to be the rule that nations like individuals +must have fears and the American phobia is that this country will +proceed amoeba-wise by scission, into several countries. When we feel +a weakening at the center we feel a horror in the peripheries. + +We fought one great war to prevent a breaking up of the Union and +whenever we hear the word "section," we become apprehensive. And just as +"section" fills our minds with fear of cleavage upon geographical lines, +so "class" arouses anxiety over cleavage upon social lines. "Class" +calls up the spectre of socialism. "Bloc" moreover is a word of unhappy +associations. It brings into the imagination Europe with all its turmoil +and its final catastrophe. + +The Civil War left us with one complex. The European War left us with +another. The agricultural bloc touches both, suggesting division and +upon European lines. Being agricultural it is vaguely sectional; being +the projection of a single interest into national politics so as to cut +across parties, it follows European precedents. It moreover derives its +name from abroad. + +Call it log-rolling by the farmers, however, and it relates to the +habitual method of American legislation. It conforms to our best +traditions. We never spoke of the groups which filled pork barrels of +the past as blocs, but every river and harbor bill was the work of +minorities uniting to raid the treasury. The two recent amendments to +the Constitution, granting the suffrage to women and prohibiting the +manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, were also achieved +minorities. + +The organized minorities of the past dissolved when their end was +obtained. They had a specific rather than a general purpose. Usually it +was a moral purpose, the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, or political +justice for woman. Never until recently did a minority raise the +economic interests of one section of society against those of the rest +of society and promise to keep on raising them. The farm bloc is the +first permanent economic minority to organize itself effectively for +political action. + +The phenomenon is not that the bloc impairs our political system; it +does not; majority rule is always tempered by minority rule or it +becomes either a tyranny or a dead thing. It is that it threatens our +pocketbooks. It obtains low railroad rates on farm products. It shifts +taxes from farmers to the rest of us. It secures for farmers special aid +in the form of government credits. + +Nevertheless its appearance is the most hopeful sign in Washington that +we may emerge from the governmental bog into which we have sunk. We had +centralized to the point of creating an immense and dull bureaucracy +headed by a weak Executive and equally weak Congress. Interest in +self-government was being destroyed by the mere remoteness and +irresponsiveness of the mechanism. "The parties are exactly alike. What +difference does it make which is in power?" + +We had created an organization too vast for any one to take it in hand. +And the only remedy in that case is to break the organization down. +Decentralization into States was impossible, for men never go back to +outworn forms, and State boundaries had ceased to be the real lines of +division in American society. A way out of this difficulty has been +found through the seizing of power by occupational organizations, of +which the farm bloc is the most famous and most successful. + +We could not go on as we are, with an enfeebled Executive and an +enfeebled Congress. And, if I have analyzed the situation correctly, we +shall have no more strong Executives, until some national emergency +unites the people temporarily for the accomplishment of some single +purpose. The Executive is the greatest common divisor of a diverse +society. Congress, equally, is weak so long as it remains a Congress +based upon the present theory of party government, for the party has to +be stretched out too thin, has to represent too many different views to +have character and purpose. Steadily parties are being driven more and +more to pure negation. Wilson was elected the first time on the negative +issue, "No more Roosevelt and his radicalism," and the second time on +the negative issue, "He kept us out of war," and Harding upon the +negative issue, "No more Wilson." + +If the two existing parties cannot be positive and constructive, "Why +not scrap them both?" asks Mr. Samuel G. Blythe. Why not, indeed? +except for the fact that you can find no principle upon which to found a +third party. If there were a positive principle upon which a majority of +the voters would agree the existing parties would grab for it. They are +colorless and negative not by choice but by necessity. + +Let us look at the situation. The public is disgusted with the existing +parties and becoming indifferent to the possibilities of the suffrage +and of popular government, an unhealthy sign. A new party is out of the +question, for to succeed any new party must be broad enough to cover all +sorts and conditions of men, divergent groups and interests. It must at +once have the defects of the old parties. + +So long as parties "must be careful," to quote Mr. Harding, executives +must "be careful" and Congress organized on the party basis "must be +careful." We gravitate toward negation. + +We face in government perhaps what it is said we face in industry and in +war, organization on such a scale that men are no longer masters of it. +Under such circumstances there is nothing to do but to break it up into +its component parts. That is what the group or bloc system is, a +resolution into component parts. + +It is precisely what will happen in the industrial field if the great +combinations of twenty years ago prove too unwieldy. The vertical trust, +the single industry, organized like the Stinnes group or like the Henry +Ford industry from the raw material to the finished product but seeking +no monopoly, promises to take the place of the horizontal trust of +monopolistic tendency. The bloc is a vertical organization appearing in +the field of politics, which hitherto has been dominated by the +horizontal organization of the parties. + +A vertical organization, like everything vertical in this world, tends +to rest upon the solid earth. It has its base in reality. The bloc +introduces reality into public life. It will be represented by men who +are not ashamed to stand frankly for the selfish interests of their +group. + +When we banished selfish interests from the government a few years ago +we banished all interests--and even all interest, too--leaving very +little but hypocrisy and timidity. The representatives of a group will +not have to be all things to all men as our party men are, but only one +thing to one kind of men. + +If we cannot get our present parties to stand for anything, if for the +same reason we cannot form a new party to stand for anything, we can at +least introduce principles into politics through the force of group +support. Blocs will be positive, not merely negative as the parties have +become. They do not have to please everybody. They can and must be +constructive. + +The clash of ideas which we miss between parties may take place between +blocs. I am assuming, as everyone in Washington does, that the farm +bloc is only a forerunner of other similar political efforts, for every +economic interest which is organized among the voters may extend itself +vertically into Congress. + +There will be a gain in decentralization, there will be a gain in +honesty, there will be a gain in constructive political effort through +the direct representation of the real interests of society in Congress. + +Nor does there appear any danger of the break up into utterly unrelated +minorities such as has taken place, let us say, in France and Germany. +We have what most European countries has not, an elected Executive who +plays an important part in legislation, the President with his veto +power. So long as the presidential office retains this function, and it +is always likely to retain it, there must be national parties within +which the minorities, interests, or occupational groups, must cooperate. + +Groups will not be able in this country as in Europe to elect members of +the national legislature independently, then form a combination and pick +their own Executive. They are under compulsion to elect the Executive at +large by the votes of the whole people; they must hold together enough +for that purpose. + +The centrifugal tendency of minorities in the American system is thus +effectively restrained. Groups must work within the parties, as the +agricultural bloc has done and as the proposed liberal workers bloc +promises to do. A handful of seats in Congress alone is not worth +fighting for: that is why all third party movements have failed. A +handful of seats in a European parliament is worth having; it may +dictate the choice of the Executive; that is why parties are numerous +abroad. In other words "bloc" is a useful name as indicating a radical +departure in our political system but it contains no threat for this +country of the political disintegration prevailing in Europe. + +The names Republican and Democrat are likely to last as convenient +designations of the accord reached for national purposes between the +vertical organizations which represent economic or other group interests +of the people. Unity is thus preserved as well as diversity, which is +what upon geographical lines, the Father of the Constitution sought. + +You have only to regard the agricultural bloc to perceive the truth of +this analysis. Primarily its members are Republicans or Democrats and +only secondarily representatives of agriculture. They have rejected +leadership of a separatist tendency, choosing the moderate guidance of +Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Capper rather than the more individualistic +generalship of Mr. Borah or Mr. La Follette. Some day their successors +may be primarily representatives of agriculture and only secondarily +Republicans or Democrats, but in one of the two big parties they must +retain their standing, or share the fate of third parties, a fate +made inevitable by the necessity electing of a chief executive at +large. + +[Illustration: SENATOR ARTHUR I CAPPER OF KANSAS] + +When the farmer votes for legislators who will represent primarily the +farm interest, and the laborer for legislators who will represent +primarily the labor interest and the business man for legislators who +will represent the business interests self-government will assume a new +importance, even though all of these interests will have to be +subordinated to the general interest for the sake of cooperation with a +party in the choice of an Executive. + +I have compared the group organization to the vertical trust of the +industrial world. The resemblance is striking. Take the instance of Herr +Stinness, the most interesting figure in manufacturing today. Originally +he was a coal mine owner. Instead of spreading laterally to monopolize +coal he builds upward from his raw material to finished products. He +adds iron to his holdings and manufactures electrical supplies and +electricity. He owns his own ships for the carrying of his products. He +would buy railroads from the German government for the transporting of +them. He owns newspapers for political action. And the whole +organization culminates with himself in the Reichstag, and in +international relations where he is almost as significant a figure as +the German government itself. + +Mr. Henry Ford, a lesser person, started at the other end and organized +downward to the raw material. He now owns his own mines, his railroads +for shipping, his raw material and products, his steel foundries, the +factories which turn out his finished products, his weekly newspaper, +and he is himself a political figure of no one yet knows how much +importance. + +The farmers are organized for social purposes, for the distribution of +information among themselves, for cooperation in buying and selling, for +maintaining a lobby at Washington and finally for political action. +Political action crowns an organization which serves all the purposes +for which union is required. + +Practically every other interest is organized to the point of +maintaining a lobby at Washington. Only the farmers have developed +organization in Congress. Only they have adapted their organization to +all their needs, social and political. Only they have the perfect +vertical trust running straight up from the weekly entertainment in the +union or bureau to the Senate in Washington, where their Senators do the +bidding of their agent, Mr. Gray Silver. + +Indispensable to effective special interest representation seems to be +an organization for other than political purposes which brings the +voters of a class or occupation together. Labor has such an organization +in its unions. Business has it perhaps in its Chambers of Commerce and +Boards of Trade. Either of them has the means at its disposal for +imitating the farmers and developing a bloc in the national legislature. + +It is natural that the farm interest should be the first to push its way +beyond the lobby or propaganda stage at Washington to that of organized +representation on the floor of Congress. Agriculture is the single +interest or the immensely predominating interest in many States. A +Senator or Representative from such a state may safely consider himself +a representative of agriculture. But in a more fully developed community +there is a diversity of interests. Where there is capital there is also +labor. Moreover most of the industrial States have also their +agricultural interest. It is not safe for an Eastern Senator or +Representative, as the situation now stands, to identify himself with +any minority. He must at least pretend to "represent the whole people." + +If the vertical movement in politics proceeds, as it almost inevitably +must, it will manifest itself effectively first in the lower house. +Congress districts are small units. In an industrial State one district +may be prevailingly agricultural, another prevailingly labor, another +prevailingly commercial. Groups operating within a party will tend to +parcel out the districts among themselves holding their support of each +other's candidates, as the Liberal and Labor parties have often done in +England. + +The Senate will be less responsive. States are large units and, except +in farming regions, are not prevailingly of one interest. But a division +may be effected like that which now gives one Senator to the eastern and +another to the western, or one to the urban and another to the rural +part of the State. One Senator may go to business and another to +agriculture or to labor as the case may be. + +What I have just written is by way of illustration. I have spoken of +agricultural, labor and business blocs not because these are the only +divisions of society that may be organized for political purpose but +because they already have the basic machinery and seem certain to thrust +upwards till they are prominently represented in Congress. Other +minority interests are already showing themselves, as for example the +soldiers of the late war and the inland waterways group. These and +others like them, some permanent and some temporary, will cut across the +main subdivisions, so that men who are divided on one interest will be +united on another and thus furnish a further cement in the body politic +in addition to the necessity of joint action upon the presidency. + +Thus there is less danger of our being ruled by minorities than there is +of minorities having to surrender too much of their purposes for the +sake of unity among themselves and of our thus being in spite of their +organization little better off than we are now, reduced by the sheer +mass that has to be moved to a policy of inaction and negation. + +In an earlier chapter I analyzed the Senate to show how weak and +will-less it is and how inferior is its personnel, how prostrate it lies +before any powerful minority which has a purpose and the will to carry +it out. I used the Senate as typical of Congress; a desire to save space +and to avoid repetitions kept me from a similar study of the House. In +the same way the parties lie ready for the uses of minorities. They are +will-less. They have no aim and express no unity because when the old +pioneer will to exploit as quickly as possible the national resources +without regard to waste, physical or social, ceased to operate, there +was no unity, except, as I have explained, for temporary purposes, for +social defense under Roosevelt and for national defense under Wilson, +two essentially negative ends. + +Mr. Will H. Hays trying to tell the Republican senate how to vote on the +League covenant, was a less powerful figure than was Mr. Wayne B. +Wheeler ordering it to vote that more than one half of one per cent of +alcohol in a beverage was intoxicating, or Mr. Gray Silver forcing it to +extend credits to farmers, or Colonel Taylor frightening it into voting +for a soldiers' bonus. + +The old party bosses are dead. No machine leader will control as many +delegates in the next national convention as will Mr. Gray Silver. So +far as delegates are now led they are led by Senators and +Representatives. A Senate group chose Mr. Harding at Chicago. And +Senators and Representatives lie at the mercy of organized minorities. + +The Republican party in 1920 was an agglomeration of minorities, held +together by no better binder than the negation of Wilsonism. There were +the German vote, the Irish vote and the other foreign votes; the farmer +vote, the business vote, the old American vote, the frightened vote, the +herd vote and every conceivable kind of vote. It was in effect a bloc, +in the European sense of that word, a combination of small parties. +These minorities were mostly unorganized in 1920 or imperfectly +organized; their development vertically is now going on. Some of them +will appear as definitely upon the floor of the 1924 convention as the +agricultural group has upon the floor of Congress. + +With the organization of minorities Congress becomes important, for it +is in Congress that the Fathers in their wisdom provided for the +expression of minorities. The Presidency, according to the argument used +before in this book, dwindles to a charming embodiment of that great +American negative--nationwide public opinion. The only ordinarily +available positive--group opinion--finds its play in the Legislature. +There will be determined upon whose shoulders the taxes will be shifted, +who shall have effective rebates in freight rates, and more important +still, who shall use for his group interests the government control of +credit. Where these questions are being decided there public +attention will concentrate. There will be the stress upon government. + +[Illustration: GREY SILVER, THE MAN BEHIND THE FARM BLOC] + +As Congress becomes more important better men will be drawn into it. +There will be a gain to public life in this country from emphasis upon +the parliamentary side of government. As it is now only one prize in +American politics is worth while and that is the Presidency. And there +is no known rule by which men may attain to it. Candidates for it are +chosen at random, from governing a State, from an obscure position in +the Senate, from the army, it may be; in no case does it come as the +certain reward of national service. + +And if, as happened when Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson were made +President, really able men attain the office, they may serve their +country only four years, or eight years at most, and then must retire +from view. In England, for example, similar men are at the head of the +government or leading the opposition for the greater part of a lifetime. +English public life would inevitably look richer than ours even were it +not richer, for when they breed a statesman in England they use him for +years. We discard him after four or eight years. We have not the system +for developing statesmen and when by chance we find one we waste him. + +We put our faith in the jack-of-all-trades and the amateur. We have the +cheerful notion that the "crisis produces the man." This is nothing +more than the justice illusion which is lodged in the minds of men, an +idea, religious in its origin, that no time of trial would arrive unless +the man to meet it were benignantly sent along with it, a denial of +human responsibility, an encouragement to the happy-go-lucky notion that +everything always comes out right in the end. + +The world, in going through the greatest crisis in history has +controverted this cheerful belief, for it has not produced "the man" +either here or elsewhere. No one appeared big enough to prevent the war. +No one appeared big enough to shorten the war. No one appeared big +enough to effect a real peace. And no one appeared big enough to guide +this country wisely either in the war or in the making of peace, which +is still going on. + +Only in parliamentary life is there enough permanency and enough +opportunity for the breeding of statesmen. We shall never have them +while the Presidency with its hazards and its wastes is stressed as it +has been in recent years. + +And Congress itself must be reformed before it will encourage and +develop ability. The seniority rule, to which reference has been made +before, must be abolished before talent will have its opportunity in the +legislative branch. + +One of the first things that aggressive minorities would be likely to do +is to reach out for the important committee chairmanships. Already the +seniority rule has been broken in the House, when Martin Madden was +made Chairman of the Appropriations Committee instead of the senior +Republican, an inadequate person from Minnesota. + +And in any case the seniority rule will be severely tested in the +Senate. If Senator McCumber is defeated in North Dakota and Senator +Lodge is defeated or dies, Senator Borah will be in line to be chairman +of the important Foreign Relations Committee. When Senator Cummins, who +is sick, dies or retires and Senator Townsend is defeated, which now +seems likely, Senator LaFollette will be in line to be chairman of the +Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. Both irregulars will then +attain places of vast power unless the seniority rule is abrogated. + +Thus even the machine in the Senate will soon be under pressure to do +away with the absurd method of awarding mere length of service with +power and place. + +Minorities when they determine to take the Senate and the House out of +the enfeebled grasp of incompetent regularity will inevitably find +precedents already established for them. + +A richer public life will come from the breakdown of the safeguards of +mediocrity and from the stressing of the legislative at the expense of +the executive branch of the government. Both these results are likely to +follow from the effective appearance of minority interests in Congress. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE HAPPY ENDING + + +I have hesitated a long time over writing this last chapter, because of +the natural desire to give to my book a happy ending. + +One may write critically of America and things American, but only if one +ends in a mood of hopeful confidence. There is so much youth, so much +latent power here, that one cannot fail to have faith that the spirit of +man will gain some enlargement from the experiment in living which we +are carrying on in this country. + +And even if that were not true, egotism requires us to believe that we +are ever going forward to better things; for how should "the forces" +have the effrontery to establish so splendid a people as ourselves upon +so rich a continent, while reserving for us nothing but a commonplace +career, that of one of the many peoples who have from time to time +occupied the fairer regions of the earth? + +At least we shall fill a place in history alongside Greece and Rome; we +feel it as the imaginative young man feels in himself the stirrings of +a future Shakespeare, Napoleon, or Lincoln. + +The human mind refuses to conceive of so much power coming to ordinary +ends. The justice illusion which men have found so indispensable a +companion on their way through time requires the happy ending. As it is +only right and fair that when the forces send us a crisis they should +send us a man equal to it, so it is only right and fair that when they +put so great a people as ourselves in the world they should prepare for +it a splendid destiny. + +I subscribe heartily to this doctrine. It is as convincing as any I have +ever seen based on the theory which we all cheerfully accept, that man +is not master of his own fate, that he does not need to be, that he had +better not be, that he reaps where he does not sow, reaps, indeed, +abundant crops. + +In the preceding chapter, working toward the happy ending, I have +brought my characters to the verge of felicity: the perfect union +between minorities and majorities, which is the aim of all social order, +is in sight. + +I have based my minorities upon self-interest, thus introducing into our +government the selfish interests banished therefrom twenty years ago. +Their banishment was an achievement of virtue. Their reintroduction is +the accomplishment of good sense. They are the great reality while the +world thinks as it does. + +Since someone somewhere, in a treatise on economics probably, penned +the phrase "enlightened self-interest," we have all more or less become +enamored of the idea that wisdom--enlightenment--reposes in the bosom of +selfishness. Justice requires that wisdom should be somewhere. The +reasoning runs like this. The world cannot get on without wisdom. +Justice demands that the world should get on. Therefore there is wisdom +in the world. We know it is not in ourselves or in our neighbors. We +feel, therefore, that it must be in the bosom of perfect selfishness. +And as we cast our eyes about us we think we know where the bosom of +perfect selfishness is, and we feel assured. + +Sometimes, of course, we place it in the heads of all mankind, it being +a thing that no one man has and no few men have, but which is one of +those mysterious properties of the aggregate which does not inhere in +the individuals composing the aggregate; a sort of colloidal element +that comes from shaking men up together, though all are without it +before the mixing and shaking. + +Some would place it, as Mr. Wilson seems to in a famous passage on +minorities, in the breasts of the enlightened few. When the few +disagreed with him, he threw them and their wisdom in jail. + +But wherever it is, it is sure to be found in a system which preserved +the old parties representing the general mind of the country along with +the new vertical political organizations, representing the minorities, +thrusting up like volcanoes upon the placid plane of politics that Mr. +Harding once delighted to survey. + +You have in this combination the spontaneous wisdom of the masses, if +that is where wisdom generates. You have the wisdom of the few, if you +believe in impregnation from above, and you have the wisdom of +selfishness, if you believe as most of us do in the enlightenment of +self-interest. And no one ever located wisdom anywhere else than in +these three places, for the first, as I might easily demonstrate, is the +modern democratic name for the wisdom of God; the second is the wisdom +of men; and the third is the wisdom of the serpent; beside which there +are no other wisdoms. + +This you will admit is moving rapidly and without reserve toward the +happy ending. But I think every writer of a novel has stuck his tongue +in his cheek as he wrote those benedictory words, "And they lived happy +ever after." And I stick my tongue in my cheek as I think of Mr. Gray +Silver, the effective director of the farmers' vertical political trust +sitting in the Senate, leading it perhaps in place of Senator Lodge of +Massachusetts. + +To Mr. Lodge's petulant, imperious gesture--the sharp handclap for the +pages--would succeed Mr. Silver's fixing gesture, that of a country +merchant smoothing out a piece of silk before a customer at a counter. +Mr. Silver as he talks performs one constant motion, a gentle slow +moving of both hands horizontally, palms down. + +Mr. Silver is a lobbyist with the powers of a dictator, or a dictator +with the habits of a lobbyist, whichever way you wish to look at it. A +former farmer, member of the West Virginia legislature, representative +of farm organizations at Washington, he rules the Senate with more power +than Mr. Lodge has or Mr. Harding has, but always with the gentle touch +of a general-storekeeper, spreading the wrinkles out of a yard of satin. + +But even this little lobbyist has a certain definiteness which public +men generally lack. His feet are firmly placed upon reality. He speaks +for a solid body of opinion. He is a positive rather than a negative +force. He represents a fairly united minority which knows what it wants, +and men are strong or weak according as they are or are not spokesmen of +a cause; and the selfish interest of a group easily takes on the pious +aspect of a cause. + +It is always better to deal with principals than with agents. Gray +Silver, Colonel John H. Taylor, the Apollo of the soldiers' bonus lobby, +perfect ladies' man in appearance, who is full of zeal also for a cause, +that of those who did not make money out of the war and who should in +common justice make it all the rest of their lives out of the peace, and +Wayne B. Wheeler, the fanatic leader of the drys, are all more real men +than those who do their bidding in the Senate and the House. + +No, if I put my tongue in my cheek as I write the words "lived happy +ever after," it is because I see only a measure of improvement in the +freeing of men from existing political conventions which will come from +the effective emergence of minorities. A richer public life will result +from increased vitality of the legislative branch. But a rich public +life, no; for that requires men. You cannot fashion it out of Lodges, +Watsons, Curtises, Gillettes, Mondells, Hardings, Hugheses, and Hoovers, +or even Gray Silvers, Taylors, or Wheelers. + +And we do not breed men in this country. If the test of a civilization +is an unusually high average of national comfort, achieved in a land of +unparalleled resources, whose exploitation was cut off from interruption +by foreign enemies, then this experiment in living which we have been +conducting in America has been a great success; if it is a further +freeing of the human spirit, such as finds its expression in the rare +individuals who make up the bright spots in all past human history, then +its success is still to be achieved. + +Many blame the dullness and general averageness which afflicts us upon +democracy. There is democracy and there is timidity and stupidity; there +is the appeal to low intelligence; the compulsion to be a best seller +rests upon us all. _Post hoc propter hoc._ + +I am going to blame it upon the mistake Euclid made in his theorem about +two parallel lines. This was an error of Euclid's, modern mathematics +proves, unless you assume space to be infinite. Having committed +ourselves to Euclid, we committed ourselves to a space that was +infinite. Space being regarded as infinite, man was little, relatively. + +Euclid having made his mistake about the parallels, it followed +inevitably that Mr. Harding should be little. + +I use Mr. Harding only by way of illustration. You may fill any other +name you like of the Washington gallery into that statement of +inevitability and do it no violence. And this very interchangeability of +names suggests that you must go further back than democracy to find the +cause of today's sterility. + +Besides, we have had infinite space, in our minds; but have we ever had +democracy there? De Gourmont writes that no religion ever dies, but it +rather lives on in its successor. Similarly, no form of government ever +dies; it survives in its successor. A nation does not become a democracy +by writing on a bit of paper, "resolved that we are a democracy, with a +government consisting of executive, legislative, and judicial branches +chosen by majority vote." + +Government, however organized, is what exists in the minds of the +people, and in that mind is stored up a dozen superstitions, handed down +from primitive days, gathering force from time to time as new names are +given to them and new "scientific" bases are found for them. + +We laugh at the divine right of kings, but we could not accept +self-government without bestowing on it an element of divinity. We have +the divine right of Public Opinion. We can hardly print these words +without the reverence of capital letters. The founders of modern +democracy knew there could be no government without a miraculous +quality. Formerly one mere man by virtue of ruling became something +divine. The miracle grew difficult to swallow. You could regard this one +man and see that he was a fool and had too many mistresses. He was the +least divine-looking thing that could be imagined. Very well then, put +the divine quality into something remote. All men by virtue of ruling +themselves became divine. + +An immense inertia develops between theoretical self-government and the +practical reluctance of humanity to be governed by anything short of the +heavenly hosts. I don't know whether this reluctance springs from racial +modesty, the feeling that man is not good enough to govern himself, or +from racial egotism, the belief that nothing is too good to govern him; +but it is a great reality. The little men at Washington are will-less in +the conflict. + +To overcome this inertia, minorities whose interests cannot wait upon +the slow benevolent processes of determinism or upon the divine +rightness of public opinion, form to prod the constitutional organs of +government into action. Mr. Gray Silver, the silk smoother, and Mr. +Wayne B. Wheeler, the Puritan fanatic, are both just as much parts of +the government as is Mr. Harding. So, too, is every one of the hundred +and more lobbies which issue publicity at Washington. We recognize this +plurality of our institutions in our common speech. We refer habitually +to the "invisible government," to "government by business," to "party +government," to "government by public opinion." We have little but +inertia, except as outside pressure is applied to it. + +The little men at Washington live in all this confusion of an +excessively plural government. They are pushed hither and yon by all +these forces, organized and unorganized, mental and physical, real and +imaginary, that inhibit and impel self-government. They lean heavily +upon parties only to find parties bending beneath their weight. They +yield to blocs and lobbies. They watch publicity and put out their own +publicity to counteract it. + +Like the ministers of crowned fools, they gull the present embodiment of +divine right and cringe before it. They are everything but the effective +realization of a democratic will. + +All this sounds as if I were getting far from my happy ending, and you +begin to see me asking the old question, "Is democracy a failure?" But +no, it is too soon to ask it. Wait a thousand years until democracy has +had a real chance. A revolution--no really optimistic prognosis can be +written which does not have the world revolution in it--a revolution +will have to take place in men's minds before this is a democracy. + +I would absolve myself from the taboo of this word. Property is a grand +form of clothes. A property revolution, such as the Socialists +recommend, would be little more important in setting men's minds free +for self-government, than would putting women in trousers be in setting +women's minds free for the achievement of sex equality. + +Some German--I think it was Spengler--writing about some "Niedergang," I +think it was of western civilization--all Germans like to write about +Niedergangs--demonstrated that every new civilization starts with a new +theory of the universe, of space and time. That is, it starts with a +real revolution. + +Well, then, here is the true happy ending; Einstein is giving us a new +theory of the universe, knocking the mathematical props from under +infinity, teaching us that man largely fashions the world out of his own +mind. + +Man again tends to become what the old Greek radical called him, "The +measure of all things." Once he is, and it will take a long time for him +to admit that he is, there may be a real chance for democracy and for +the emergence of great individuals, who are after all the best evidence +of civilization. + +You see the happy ending is Einstein and not the farm bloc. + +Meanwhile we have the farm bloc, one sign of vitality amid much +deadness, a reassertion of the principle which the Fathers of the +Constitution held, that there must be room for the play of minorities in +our political system. + + + + +END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Behind the Mirrors, by Clinton W. 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