The spirit of democracy

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THE SPIRIT OF
DEMOCRACY

BY

CHARLES FLETCHER DOLE

AUTHOR OF " THE COMING PEOPLE "
" THE RELIGION OF A GENTLEMAN "

YORK

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS

^t>

'■flERAt

Copyright, 1906,
By CHARLES F. DOLE.

Copyright, 1906,
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

Published, September, 1906.

Hetrtcatton

The Author begs leave to associate the publication of this book
with his good friends in the Twentieth Century Club of Boston, The
book, indeed, grew out of a Lecture, with the same title, which was
given by the kind invitation of the Club at their rooms in May, 1^04.
The Twentieth Century Club was established " to promote a finer
public spirit and a better social order J" This book is sent forth
in the hope that it may encourage its readers to believe in, and to
work for, the practical realisation of those great ideal ends which
alone give dignity, worth, and significance to human life.

155717

PREFACE

It is my purpose in this book to show what
real democratic government is. People have
studied the outside of the body of democracy;
they have hardly begun to know what makes its
life, or upon what its good health depends.

Democracy is on trial in the world, on a more
colossal scale than ever before. Its friends per-
haps never faced more difficult problems. Neither
have they ever had so much reason to hope for
success.

I have no easy panacea for the ills and griev-
ances that disturb the world. I can venture no
prophecy as to the exact form which a maturer
civiUzation will take. What generation was ever
able to lift even its most gifted leaders to see the
details of the line of march of mankind ? There
is, however, a certain spirit of humanity or good
will which all the clearest thinkers are coming to
agree is the essential factor in civilization. This
spirit is growing among men. All the signs of

vi PREFACE

the times go to show that the world is coming to
demand this spirit, as the hungry body craves
food. I hope to show that in the growth of this
spirit we find the clew to understand and to work
out the splendid experiment of democracy.

I may be thought to exaggerate certain evils ;
for example, the mischief of militarism and parti-
sanship. I wish, however, to disclaim any narrow
philosophy touching the problem of evil. I accept
the facts of savagery and barbarism, as I accept
the facts of a necessary period of childhood in the
life of each individual. I quite sympathize with
President David Starr Jordan's lines : —

" Jungle and town and reef and sea,
I loved God's earth and his earth loved me,
Taken for all in all."

But I assume that we are here to carry highroads

through the jungle and to mark the reefs by buoys

and lighthouses. If the world on the whole is a

good world, we shall find this out as fast and only

as fast as we seek to make it better.

C. F. D.

Note. — The author wishes to acknowledge the friendly
interest of the publishers of the Springfield Republican^ who,
with their characteristic willingness to encourage the discus-
sion of public questions, printed the chapters of this book in
a series, November, igos-May, 1906.

CONTENTS

Preface

CHAPTER

I. The Teaching of History
II. New Ideas in Politics
Y" in. Democracy as a Social Force
IV. Good Will: A Motive Principle
V. Idealism and the Facts .
V - VI. Democracy and Sovereignty : New Mean-
ings

'VII. What is Government? .

"^ VIII. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

IX. The Extension of Democracy .

, X. Practical Problems : The Suffrage

XI. The Laws: The Legitimate Use of

Force ....

XII. The Treatment of Crime .

XIII. The Problem of Pauperism

XIV. Majority Rule .
XV. Representative Government

^ XVI. Democracy and the Executive

XVII. The Party System

XVIII. The Rule of the Cities .

XIX. The Problem of War

XX. Democracy and Imperlalism

PAGB
V

I

14

21
26

35

46
62
78
87
103

120

130
148
161

174
184

193
216

233
248

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XXI.

XXII.

XXIIL

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

» XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

The Monroe Doctrine and the Golden

Rule .

The United States as a World Power

Popular Taxation .

Democratic Forms of Taxation

Local Democracy .

The New Immigration

The Labor Unions .

Democracy and the Family .

The Education for a Democracy

Anarchy and Socialism .

The Religion in Democracy .

The Prospects of Democracy

262

282

293
308

319
329
349
368

379
393-
410
422

THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY

The name " democracy," of Greek origin, de-
scribes a form of government already in familiar
use when Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander the
Great, wrote his famous treatise on Politics. Thus
the city of Athens in the time of its splendor was
a democracy, in which the whole body of citizens
managed their own affairs and were all eligible to
the public offices. Rome was also substantially a
democracy, modified by highly aristocratic features,
and at last passing insensibly under the hands of
the Caesars, while its democratic forms were still
outwardly observed. Mediaeval Florence would
have come under Aristotle's definition of a democ-
racy.

The cantons of Switzerland have perhaps given
the world its best and most durable examples of
democratic instructions. England, with its ancient

2 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

and complex scheme of a monarchy and House of
Lords, has been moving toward actual popular
government ever since the Stuarts were driven
from the throne. The birth of the independent
republic of the United States was simply an out-
growth of this great and earlier movement of the
English people, feeling their way toward thoroughly
free institutions. But the new republic carried the
burden of African slavery upon its shoulders for
more than half of its career to the present time.
It started with various forms of limited suffrage.
Its citizenship to-day is largely composed of people
who have lived under undemocratic governments
and have never till lately breathed the air of
freedom.

The conviction is abroad in the world that de-
mocracy is the coming regime. But it is as yet on
trial. In many quarters there is even yet a feeling
of dread about it. Most of the earHer political
thinkers held that democracy meant the rule of
the mediocre. Many think so still. Others fear,
not without show of reason, that a vast centralized
democracy will easily lend itself to the schemes of
ambition, and will develop, like Rome, into an
empire. Nowhere yet have the people fairly come
into full use of their power. The laws under

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 3

which the people act have been framed to no in-
considerable extent in the interest of a class,
namely, the owners of property. No one can tell
how far such laws may have to be modified in
order to express the will of the whole people. The
history of the democracy is an unfinished book..
Only its first chapters, relating the story of its
infancy, have yet been written.

Interesting and valuable as history is, it is easy
to overestimate its importance. By far the largest
part of its record consists of men's blunders and
failures. In the wearisome maze of its details, it
is hard to distinguish principles and the lines of
progress. There are great wildernesses of history
in which one can discern little, if any, significant
movement. Many a time mankind has wandered
from the true path of advancement in futile experi-
ments, which only serve at best as warnings to
later generations. The history of medicine, of
science, of institutions, of morals, of religions, of
liberty, through thousands of years, presents to
the reader only here and there brief eras of prog-
ress, like jets of light rising out of the darkness of
the primitive ignorance and superstition.

The inventors, the discoverers, the reformers,
the great leaders of the march of mankind, have

THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

not been men who worshipped the past and followed
historigj^l^ecedents. On the contrary, they have
throwir|B|p;dents aside and have addressed them-
selves in every instance to the pressing questions
of their own age ; they have grappled at first hand
with the secrets of nature, with the conditions
and the materials which they found immediately
at hand ; they have freed their minds of prejudices;
they have set their eyes on ideals and the future
rather than on ancient traditions and statutes ;
they have believed that " new occasions teach new
duties." They have known history quite as well
for its repeated warnings, marking " No thorough-
fare " against the way of men's errors, as for its
more definite and positive, but less frequent
lessons.

In fact, history has largely been written from a
wrong point of view. It has been made the record
of man's crimes, his greed, his ambitions^ his
wars and oppression — the sensational side of his
career. " Behold human nature, always the same,"
the historians have said. It is a very modern
effort to write history in accordance with the phi-
losophy of evolution. Only the few, like the late
J. R. Green, have as yet fairly succeeded in setting
forth the most impressive lesson of history, — the

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 5

development of those social or cooperative forces
in human nature which constitute civilization.
Read in this light, all human experiences — even
rivalry, competition, war — find their interpreta-
tions as the incidents of a movement which works
to make men so social, so humane, so intelligent,
so sane and normal, so democratic, that hate,
injustice, and arrogance must come to be held as no
less opprobrious than the thumb-screw and the
whipping-post. We have only begun to gather the
materials to write history from this new point of
view.

The history of the rise and growth of democratic
government, therefore, hardly tells us anything of
what real democracy is. It might be, and indeed
has been, shrewdly turned into a tale of warning
against democracy and a defence of absolutism.
Men have shuddered at the doings of historic
democracies, very much as parents may shudder
at the risks that their boys run in learning to climb
or to skate. The name of democracy, like many
noble words, has a high and good meaning, and
also a dubious and somewhat damaged meaning;
it has had a double pedigree.

The ancient democracy was simply one of the
forms of government more or less rudely suited to

6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

a military or predatory age. When in a Greek
city the people rose and overturned the aristocrats
or the king, the government remained in the hands
of only a larger number of fighters, whose business
continued to be mainly war. The Athenian democ-
racy was the citizen soldiery. The early associa-
tion of democracy was thus with a rule of force.
Though the basis of the government had become
broader than it was under the rule of nobles, it had
not changed its character. Brutal and rival fac-
tions or parties still continued. There was always
the chance for a popular chief to make himself the
new tyrant.

This was not merely the characteristic danger
of democracy; it was the dominant feature of a
military age, always liable to sudden revolutions.
A citizen soldiery desired the wealth and emolu-
ments created by successful wars and by the
conquest of rival cities. Who ever heard of an
ancient democracy planning for the welfare, the
prosperity, and the happiness of its subjects.?
The early governments dealt with enemies
abroad and robbers at home, with dangerous
rivals also, or opposite parties, quick to take
up arms and seize the reins of authority. This
befitted a world which, without knowing Dar-

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 7

winism, was trying the animal experiment of
"the survival of the fittest," and mostly be-
lieved that "might was right."

Early democracy arose out of no abstract doctrine
of the rights of men. Actual deeds of outrage and
injustice on the part of the ruling group, as illus-
trated in the story of the Roman Lucretia, or the
maiden Virginia, doubtless stirred men to revenge
and to overturn an arrogant dynasty. Even Aris-
totle and Plato, so far from seeing any sense in
elevating slaves to a share in sovereignty, made
provision for the institution of slavery as a founda-
tion of the state. How can the precedents of
ancient democracy have much, if any, value in
solving the problems of an industrial age.-^ A
militant age offered no suitable conditions for a
satisfactory democracy, nor did it afford conditions
for any kind of government that would seem
bearable to modern men.

The tradition of a military government only
slowly passes out of men's minds. This idea
makes anarchists of noble spirits like Tolstoif and
Kropotkin, who have been used to the sight of
government compelling and terrorizing its subjects
and warring against innocent people. They sus-
pect that this is the nature of all kinds of govern-

8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ment, even of democracy. They connect every
form of government with miHtarism.

The fact to be remembered is that historic democ-
racy comes to us largely infected with the usages
of a predatory age. The pioneers of democracy
have so far been obliged to work out their experi-
ments in the teeth of hostile autocratic and class
traditions, alien to the democratic spirit. The
military mind and habit of thought are still with
us. We still bear the burden of military establish-,
ments. We are still educated to regard our fellow-
men in the military way, as friends or enemies,
rulers or subjects; the spirit of opposition and
enmity is still in the world.

Observe, however, that what has scared the con-
servative people about the working of democracy
has not been democracy at all. A bad democracy
is not essentially very different from a bad mon-
archy or a bad aristocracy. The bad king, whether
a despot or a constitutional monarch, seeks to use
power for himself rather than for the welfare of
his people. The bad aristocrats hold and use
political power for themselves and their caste. In
the bad democracy the many are doing what the
one or the few did before. Not merely each of a
little caste, but each of a crowd is seeking to get

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 9

and use power, place, and money for his own selfish
ends. Each man wants more than his share of
honor, emolument, or advantage at the public
expense.

The history of democracy even at its worst —
the failure and ruin of democratic Athens, the
fatal change at Rome from a commonwealth into
an empire, the disastrous story of the republics of
Italy, the episode of the French Revolution, the
continual revolutions in the Spanish-American
states, the misgovernment of American cities, and
the tyranny of Tammany Hall — need not discour-
age any believer in democracy. It is a story of
dictators, of oligarchies, of the working of selfish-
ness and greed ; it shows, not what a real democ-
racy is, but what a true democracy should abhor
and avoid.

Men are distressed at the condition into which
Latin-American states have fallen. The cause of
their distress is not the failure of democracy, but
the survival of barbarism. Men are distressed
when the people rise against their oppressors in
Russia and kill a grand duke. Why are they not
equally distressed when a czar shoots his people
in the streets ?

The fact is that true democracy has not yet

10 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

been achieved. We complain at men's struggles
in working it out. As well complain of the univer-
sity because college men occasionally get drunk
and destroy property like children. These esca-
pades are not results of university training ; they
show the nature of the primitive human material
which the university takes in hand.

It may be urged, however, that history shows
selfishness to be the unalterable characteristic of
human nature, alike under all systems of govern-
ment. Grant this for a moment. So far as the
world has been the theatre for the play of the
forces of selfishness, the story of the strife teaches
us to prefer open democracy to any other mode
through which men's conflicting or competing
wills work out their results.

Since selfishness is bound to assert its will and
strive for the mastery in any case, let the many
and not the few have an open field. Let the
.method of struggle be lifted to the plane of the
utmost intelligence and not suppressed in the dark.
In the long run, the egotism and the selfishness of
the masses of the people work less harm than the
more subtle and crafty selfishness of a class, ac-
customed to think of themselves as the lords of
creation, possessed of egregious ambitions and

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 1 1

extravagant covetousness. In the mass of men
the counter forces of innumerable desires and
wills tend to neutralize one another ; and the
multitude proves to be conservative beyond ex-
pectation. Give men, therefore, consideration and
power and votes, as fast and as soon as they de-
mand these things as their right. Such seems to
be the practical judgment of a purely material-
istic philosophy which governs its conduct by the
teachings of the history of centuries of barbarism,
and on the basis of the mere probabilities of social
and political expediency.

We have already suggested that the most start-
ling examples of the supposed failure of democ-
racy have not been instances of the rule of many,
but rather of the usurping rule of the few, who
have hoodwinked or terrorized the many. The
many in Paris never voted in the horrors of the
Revolution. The trouble was, the democracy had
not even been organized. You may say much the
same of the cause of the misrule of American
cities. The vast populations have poured in faster
than they could be organized to determine what
the will of the many really was. Democracy, even
on a selfish basis, has yet to be tried in New York
or Philadelphia.

12 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Let US have done then with those who deplore
the old times, when they imagine that they would
have been the princes and aristocrats living in
castles or sitting in council chambers. The fair
chance is that these same men would have been
peasants. Let them regret those fierce romantic
days as they may. Mankind never retraces the
way of its history. You can never again reduce
men to slavery or serfdom. Never again can a
few strong men armed coerce the unarmed many.
They cannot do this much longer in India. The
methods of democracy, even if we must call them
mere external machinery, are the only means for
a world that begins to think. Whether people
are fit for democracy or not, they must have the
name and the forms. Even in Mexico they get
as much as this. It is the pledge that sometime
they will have more. Even in a selfish world,
the rule is that the people everywhere want
to enjoy the rights and the privileges, though
these are only nominal, which others like them
possess.

So much for democracy in its lowest terms, as
revealed in the imperfect forms of its historical
growth. Is it not a wonderful world, which, out
of all the mischief of its barbarism, has already

THE TEACHING OF HISTORY 1 3

succeeded in elevating even a crude form of de-
mocracy over all kinds of aristocratic or autocratic
rule, and recommending it, on the whole, to the
more enlightened selfishness of all who really
think.

II

NEW IDEAS IN POLITICS

There is nothing more striking, whether in the
story of the individual man or in the history of the
race, than the development from time to time of
new interests and ideals. Watch the growth of any
normal child. There come periods of crisis and
change. The growing mind awakes to the sight of
new objects of desire and is stirred by new mo-
tives. Again and again, the course of his life takes
a fresh turn, as in the unfolding of a flower, and
goes on different lines and toward different ends.

Society also, in the large, tends to follow the
same processes of growth through which the indi-
vidual passes. No merely uniformitarian theory
of history will work. Seasons and crises come,
like tides, when all society wakes up to fresh in-
terests and is swayed by ideas, if not new to the
enlightened few, yet altogether new in their ap-
peal to the many. What else do we expect in a
world, to the understanding of which we bring the
clew of the idea of evolution ?

14

NEW IDEAS IN POLITICS 15

Thus, in a marvellous way, mankind has almost
suddenly come into the transforming use of cer-
tain simple but newly applied principles of me-
chanical, electrical, and chemical force. The face
of the world has been materially altered by the
new study, and the distinctly purposeful use, of
these laws of matter and force. Mankind has
risen to a new self -consciousness as to the world
which we inhabit. Mankind has entered into a
sort of new faith as to the beneficent possibilities
of the world. See the magnificent results which
we have already reached by obedient study of, and
faith in, external nature !

We have studied nature outside of us. We
have only begun fairly to study the far more im-
portant science of the human nature within us.
We have only begun to learn to understand, apply,
and use the forces and motives which as surely
rule and make human welfare and happiness as
gravitation rules the tides. We have taken hu-f
man nature, as men once took the outward nature,
as an impassable wilderness in which good, bad,
and indifferent fruits grew at random, and warring
powers were supposed always to be in conflict.
So far from having faith in the possibilities of our
nature as good, as we have faith in the soil.

l6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

we have habitually and even dogmatically dis-
trusted human nature as bad. We have ex-
pected the worst of it and handled it against the
grain.

The time has dawned to expect the same kind
of awakening to the great natural facts and laws
that concern the development of men, as we have
already seen in the building up of our marvellous
outward modern civilization. We are finding out
that we cannot control the new wealth of the
world unless we produce men better fitted to cor-
respond to it, to distribute it more justly, to enjoy
it worthily. In every respect the times call — we
will not say for the discovery of new principles of
government and society, but rather for the recog-
nition and distinctly purposeful application, on a
scale commensurate with our needs, of principles
as old as mankind, which yet only a few have
awakened to see and to use.

• Let me merely mention here certain transform-
ing ideas which are surely coming in to mould
modern society. One of these ideas is the unity
or solidarity of the human race. Men knew it
when Terence wrote his plays. But they know
it in a new form when a postal union binds
the world together, when the railroad and the

NEW IDEAS IN POLITICS 17

telegraph traverse Siberia, when the Red Cross
society is welcome on battle-fields in Asia.
V Another idea, new in its suggestiveness, is the
conception that we inhabit a universe : its powers
are not discordant, but harmonious. In other
words, the profound tendency underneath all things
is to work together, not to work in antagonism or
isolation. This is the meaning of a universe. We
are persuaded that beneath appearances the uni-
verse reveals a vast scheme of coordination, or co-
operation. The law of the world is that you must
go with and not against the natural motion, that you
must use, adapt, and direct its forces, not struggle
against them.

This idea of a universe goes over into human
Hfe and emphasizes the thought of the solidarity
of the race. This would not be a universe, if hu-
man life were essentially discordant, if strife were
its characteristic method, if war were a permanent

condition, or selfishness were the normal man's

f
leading motive.

Familiar teachings now come into new light.
The growing record of history attests nothing so
surely as the sovereignty of justice. Again and
again every experiment that man makes in in-
justice disintegrates society. He is thrown back

1 8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

anew upon the simple order of righteousness,
which like a highway never fails the men who
follow it. So true is this that even when men
leave the highway and fight for other people's ter-
ritory, as the Japanese and the Russians have
fought to possess themselves of Manchuria, they
must generally first persuade themselves that they
are fighting for justice. The people whom we
call ''heathen" do not really believe that might
makes right, or that they can succeed in doing
injustice.

More than this, the world contemplates, as it
never did before, that wonderful rule of the Jew,
of the Christian, of the Confucian, which bids
each man to do unto his neighbor as he would
wish his neighbor to do to him. Not that the
world has yet learned to practise this rule, but the
average man knows that it ought to prevail, and
that its observance would put an end to most of
the mischief and unhappiness in the world.

Moreover, men are proving the fact, never fairly
demonstrated till now, that kindness or good will
is the mightiest force in the world. Intelligence
is power, skill is power, courage is power ; but no
power is so great as that of the man who combines
intelligence, skill, courage, and patience under the

NEW IDEAS IN POLITICS 19

dominant force of good will. Here is the meaning
of the word that " the gentle shall inherit the
earth." It is indeed by virtue of a new and higher
form which the law of " the survival of the fittest "
takes in human evolution that this rare power of
good will comes into sway. There is nothing that
can overcome it. It goes as if with the swing
of gravitation. Selfishness everywhere breaks up
into faction and chaos. Good will binds and holds
and organizes. Who are the men of might in his-
tory ? Not the fighters, but the men of good will.
Whom else can we use to pilot the vast ship of
state than the men of generous public spirit.'*
What use have we for arrogance, covetousness,
selfishness, egotism — all of them names of human
weakness ?

Here, then, are ideas at work in the modern
world which are as certain to change the organiza-
tion, and especially the spirit of government and
society, as the invention of gunpowder, the art of
printing, the discovery of America, and the use
of the steam engine have already changed the
outward world. We proceed now to a profound
fact which underlies the study of every form of
social science, and on which the hope of democ-
racy rests. Democracy is not a mere machine

20 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to be compared with modes of machinery. It is
not, as it often appears, a scheme to provide for
a great "tug of war " between contending factions,
or between multitudes of selfish voters. | It is a
force, or spirit, growing out of the nature of man.j

Ill

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE

The old-fashioned political economy made the
mistake of looking upon man as essentially a
selfish and aggressive animal. We find the same
defect in the old theories of government. "Ex-
pect men always to be selfish," they tell us. ( The
more profound fact is that man is a social or co-
operative beingj The average man is engaged in
social pursuits more than he knows. He cannot
even fight or compete without being urged to com-
bine more closely with others. He cannot be
selfish alone. He is full of susceptibility to sym-
pathy, pity, kindness, love. Though tempted to
write " I " and " my " upon everything in sight, he
takes a profounder pleasure in saying " we " and
writing " ours " over a larger and larger realm.

You can and often do establish upon the basis
of this fact a sort of fashion of sympathetic feel-
ing among men. The young child easily learns
to understand and to say "our home," "our
schoolhouse," "our town," "our play," "our

21

22 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

team," — not "my country," but "our country."
Strangely enough, whenever you come to the
mighty issues over which men are ready to give
up their lives, men are such social and cooperative
beings that they will die ever so much more will-
ingly, and even with joy, for the sake of the
things, the ideas, the institutions of which they
have learned to say "ours," than they will die
for anything on which they have merely written,
" It is mine." Is not the recent history of the
Japanese people a striking instance of this fact ?

Men's rights and morals belong to this social
realm. Justice is not yours or mine. It is what
we all conceive to be fair for all of us. Struggling
for justice, we struggle for a common property.
Truth is not a matter of private conduct ; it is the
highway which we all must travel. Standing up
for the truth, man recognizes that he is defending
a common interest. It is so with every worthy
law. If it is right, it is for the good of all.

The very idea of democracy now changes its
basis. It is not an external machinery so much as
it is an inward and Ivital force urging men to-
gether. ) It is essentially the working of the social
or coope_rative_spirit. Embodied in institutions,
it is the means whereby all men act together in

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE 23

winning and maintaining their common interests.
It is the means whereby all men can extend the
broad humane title *' ours " over a wide range.
Whatever be the ultimate outcome, the ideal
democracy has the same general aim. Kropotkin,
for example, would make the great word "liberty"
— our common liberty — coterminous with the
human race. Writers like Bellamy, on the other
hand, emphasize our common possessions and
enjoyments.

The cooperative idea is at work long before
men are conscious of it. It begins in the family,
a little society in itself. Under the most tyranni-
cal rule of the father as priest and king, as at
Rome, the life is still essentially cooperative, and
so far at least begins to be democratic. Each
village and community, each clan and tribe, each
association for industry or commerce, more or less
instinctively proposes to give mutual help to its
members. By the same law of nature even the
wolves hunt in packs.

There are indeed two selves, the tiny egotist
self, and the greater social self. If I toil for
society, give up my property, sacrifice my life, it
is not because I am coolly calculating what I can
personally draw out of the pool which others and

24 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

I, like so many gamblers, have formed for the hope
of gain. It is because I am more than my egotis-
tic self : I am a social being ; I live in others and
others live in me. Beyond all that I can claim as
"mine " is the ever growing territory which is
" ours." I am more truly a man by virtue of the
largeness of this region than by the virtue of any-
thing that is only my own.

This greater region is not in the present only,
but in the past and in the future. There is a
certain immortality, on any theory, which belongs
to all of us. I may be called upon to die, not for
those who live now, but in some great issue of
human rights, for the sake of men unborn. This
is because the future generations, and we of this,
say "ours" over common and, as you may say,
eternal interests. It is our interest that our un-
born children's children shall be as free as we are.
At our best, as far as we are really men, we all
respond to this kind of appeal. This appeal has
raised common people to martyrdom in every age
of the world, not for religion only, but for human
rights. Men and women are daily practising self-
denial in our modern world in the hope of bring-
ing about fairer industrial conditions for their
fellows.

DEMOCRACY AS A SOCIAL FORCE 2$

This bond of mutual cooperation arises out of
the deepest facts that we know. We are born
into a network of multifarious relations. A man
hardly knows what portion of his being belongs
only and wholly to himself. He has become what
he is through costly inheritances. He is bound
with inaUenable ties to parents, brothers, kin,
his country. The ego, the " my," is the least of
him. Do you say, ** Give me my rights " ? The
world of men answers back, " Perform your duties
— duties to aged parents, duties to relations, duties
to neighbors, duties to the state whose laws and
liberties you are eager to enjoy, duties to main-
tain the dikes which the pubhc-spirited of former
ages have built up to defend mankind against the
floods of the old-time barbarism and ignorance."

The scene of the death of Socrates, as Plato
relates it, illustrates this. "Come," say his
friends, " assert your individual rights. Men are
unjust to you. Athens threatens to put you to
an ignominious death. Escape and take your
liberty." And Socrates, the mightiest individu-
alist of his time, replies, "I have no rights as
against Athens and her laws."

IV

GOOD WILL : A MOTIVE PRINCIPLE

Among the difficult questions which have baffled
political thinkers is this : What possible motive, it
is asked, can you bring to bear upon men, power-
ful enough to keep them up to the arduous task of
managing civilized governments, that is, govern-
ments for the benefit and welfare of all the people?

Men can understand the nlotive of fear, of pun-
ishment, or the hope of reward. Men see what
makes the holding of office attractive to those who
thereby win fame or fortune, and are lifted into a
proud preeminence above their fellows. Give any
group of men exceptional pay or emoluments, and
they will devote themselves, as in any private busi-
ness, for "value received." Indeed, many are
already urging that the only chance for wise and
good government is to establish sufficiently high
prizes for political office to attract the ablest men
in the community. Pay princely salaries, they
say, and you have capable administration.

A democracy, however, depends for its success
26

GOOD WILL: A MOTIVE PRINCIPLE 7.^

upon the intelligence, the cooperation, the interest,
and the loyalty of a multitude of persons, who are
like so many privates in the ranks of an army,
except that the voters, unlike the soldiers, receive
no pay and wear no uniforms or brass buttons. Is
it not expecting too much of human nature to sup-
pose that a multitude of men will serve the state
out of pure public spirit or patriotism, while only
a few in any event enjoy the honors and emolu-
ments of office ?

We have already raised the question whether
selfishness is so completely the dominating force in
human nature as it is often regarded. The law of
life or happiness is not merely to strive to get or
receive. Life — a sort of rhythm — consists in
both giving and receiving. But the emphasis of the
movement of life is to give, to bring things to
pass, to express power, skill, intelligence. Even
the wild creatures delight quite as much in the
exercise of their power — in leaping, flying,
swimming, in hunting, and even perhaps in elud-
ing the hunter — as they enjoy food or drink.
Children at their sport almost forget to eat.
The joy of the artist or poet consists in his work.
There is something of the poet or creator in
every man. The best men of business love to

28 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

accomplish results beyond the mere making of
money.

Call it selfish, if you please, to desire to enjoy
the utmost flow of life ; nevertheless this flow
must be primarily outward in various forms of
expression. Let the outflow or expression be nor-
mal, and the inflow or income will, as a rule, take
care of itself. In short, the rhythm of the circula-
tion of each individual life follows a profound uni-
versal principle, which becomes more peremptory
as we rise in the scale of higher orders of being.
This principle is to give the stream of life free
motion, not to clog or keep it back. The fullest
life is thus the happiest life.

The highest form of life evidently is the action
of good will. The principle of life therefore is to
show forth good will all the time and to all men.
This is the characteristic action of man. This is
better than " altruism." It converts sacrifice into
happy and positive terms. It is the noblest con-
ception which we have of the action of God, the
Spirit or Life in and behind the universe. This
truth comes like a new discovery to our age. The
few alone have so far been able to see it. For
the first time it becomes the democratic gospel.
The fact is that selfishness, as usually understood.

GOOD WILL: A MOTIVE PRINCIPLE 29

narrows and defeats life, while good will broadens
and deepens it. The universe is doubtless so con-
stituted that in the long run " whatever is best for
the hive must also be best for the bee." The wel-
fare of the individual is not contrary to, but con-
sonant with, the welfare of society. In other
words, the happy man, or the successful man, is
also the most social man. He is the most com-
plete individual, who at the same time puts the
richness of his individuality to the public good.

We have here a motive of political action upon
which we have hardly yet begun to draw. Show
men that what they do is for the good of all, and
they naturally love to do it. Appeal to their
social spirit, and they will answer to this appeal.
It is said that the appeal to men's selfishness is
the most potent leverage upon their will. But the
appeal to their justice, their regard for the common
welfare, and their generosity is the most effectual
and the most universal mode of human persuasion.
The trouble to-day is not that this appeal will not
work, but that there are not yet enough men who
know how to use it. True, men need to be taught
what is for the common welfare ; they are often
ignorant and misguided, they entertain traditional
prejudices; they are Hke children. But, like chil-

30 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

dren, they see simple issues of justice and human-
ity, and they enjoy the exercise of their generosity.
History, rightly interpreted, is full of the evi-
dence of this fact. The demagogue has always
known how to play upon the social instincts of
people, and to persuade them and possibly to per-
suade himself, that his selfish interests were public
or national ; for example, that the protection of
the " infant industries " of the few was the protec-
tion of the labor of the many, that the war which
the ruling oligarchy wanted was for the sake of
liberty or religion. Was not the late Cuban war rep-
resented to be for the interest of humanity ? The
patriots and the humanitarians have left us an
illustrious record of their success in appealing to
the good will of mankind. It was the chivalry of
the Lancashire weavers that saved America in
the time of the civil war from an embroilment with
England. It was the growing undercurrent of
good will in the world that put an end to the insti-
tution of slavery. Good will or humanity is behind
all laws and institutions ; without it they would
fall like a house of cards. Lincoln knew and
trusted this fact. So did Gladstone. The day is
coming when no man can succeed in political life
who does not work on the lines of this principle.

GOOD WILL: A MOTIVE PRINCIPLE 31

As the old and animal motive of fear, or of
regard for constituted authority, grows fainter, the
new and more humane motive tends surely to take
its place. All wrong is social wrong ; all injustice
or cruelty touches and bhghts the common happi-
ness and welfare. All bribery and " graft " is an
attack upon society, and upon its weakest and
poorest members. Show men these facts, demon-
strate them in plain terms, draw upon the innate
chivalry that lies in our human nature, and you
will presently bind men over to the highest stand-
ards of conduct. Mr. Roosevelt's extraordinary
hold over the American people arises from the fact
that they believe him to be a man who acts alto-
gether out of regard for human welfare. Men in-
stinctively respect such a leadership. The errors
of men largely come from their thinking of them-
selves as mere individuals. They imagine that
they can do wrong alone and suffer the conse-
quences alone. They need to know that society
depends upon them, as one stone depends on
another stone in a wall, or one cell upon another
cell in a vital organ.

With this point of view there is no contradiction
between egoism and altruism. Construct and edu-
cate the most perfect individual, and the best point

32 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of his perfection is found to be in his social sense.
What is called altruism is simply the man's sight
of, and identity with, large social interests. His
best self always is one with the welfare of his
family, his kindred, his village or city, his country,
and all mankind. He could not be happy while
others suffered and he did nothing to relieve them.
His happiness is in working with, enjoying with,
growing in manhood with, and even suffering with,
the common fate, fortune, and hope of humanity.

We now have the answer to the enigma proposed
by the English political essayist, Mr. Kidd. He
inquires where the social force is to come from to
stir each new generation of men with the willing-
ness to make sacrifices for the good of posterity.
For progress comes by cost, and never without
sacrifice. Mr. Kidd reasons that men will never
pay the cost and make the sacrifice without some
sort of supernatural sanction. But we have seen
that the highest element in our nature is that
which gladly gives itself for all manner of social
purposes. In one sense the best man, and like-
wise the common man at his best moments, makes
no actual sacrifice. For what is called "sacrifice "
is really the most complete exercise of the man's
power or life. The man delights to do what his

GOOD WILL: A MOTIVE PRINCIPLE 33

good will plainly bids him do. It is the old idea,
that the patriot is never so happy as when he
gives his Hfe for his people.

There is no need of caUing in any supernatural
factor to explain this, except as one may call all
life the expression of a divine will. If in the
rudest ages you could always persuade men to die
for their country, it is no violent stretch of confi-
dence in the native chivalry of human nature to
believe that in a more humane and intelligent age
men will be easily persuaded to act and vote, and
give time and pay taxes, not only for the common
good, which the individual may not always himself
be able to enjoy, but also for the good of the com-
ing generation which we can see only in our
imagination. Is it not indeed the law of the
world that each generation of parents must work
and undergo sacrifices for their children ? This is
their pleasure.

The mighty " law of supply and demand " is
already beginning to move upward from the brutal
and material level into the region of spiritual
forces, and to set its mark of value upon the men,
both as leaders, managers, and captains of indus-
try, and also as foremen and workmen, who add
to their skill and their manliness this distinctly

34 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

human quality of good will and friendliness.
There are not as yet enough men of this sort to
fill the places. The demand has been too much
for craft and fighting power. The waste of this
brutal sort of effort is too calamitous to be borne.
The new demand is for all-round social and demo-
cratic men, not for those who seek to get the most
and give the least ; but for the true artists, poets,
and builders, who follow the joyous rule of the
world, that the well and whole man is not here
"to be ministered unto," but to serve, to bestow,
to give, and to leave the world better off. This is
his life.

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS

There are those who take a cynical tone when
any one speaks of ideals. But who are they who
can afford to despise ideals ? An ideal is simply
the architect's or engineer's plan. No one surely
thinks it practical to build without any plan. You
may call the plan unreal, but it is that which is
destined to become real. The theory of gravita-
tion or evolution, for example, is ideal, but it is
built out of a myriad of actual observations. Pre-
cisely so with this ideal of a true democracy. It
is not only that which we say ought to be, but it is
that which the experiences of generations of men
have combined to make practicable.

See how definite this human experience is which
urges our thought along lines of democratic ad-
vancement. See the real world with all manner of
experiments in society, industry, and government.
Watch the forces of the old hate, animalism, and
selfishness at work, and also the growing social
and humane forces binding men more and more

35

36 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

closely. Watch the epochs in the long compli-
cated history, where the most prosperity, success,
happiness, freedom, enlightenment, and humanity
have been. See what makes mischief, discomfort,
social distress. As far as we have anywhere
achieved harmonious and happy social results,
this development has universally proceeded along
the lines of the ideal democracy which we have
been considering. You determine a curve by find-
ing the points through which it moves. So you
determine the grander movement of human prog-
ress by knowing the points through which for-
ward movement actually proceeds.

Thus, for example, every one finds the story of
Athens for two or three splendid centuries im-
mensely interesting. This is because Athens, in
a very rude way, as we can see now, was trying a
veritable experiment in democracy. When before
was the spirit of man so free to " strive and thrive " .-*
What is Aristotle's good aristocrat but a lover of
public order and of the welfare of the people ?

Again, every one grants that the beginning of
Christianity marked a new era in history. Why
was this ? Because the characteristic democratic
genius of the Hebrew people blossomed for a little
while into free and brotherly communities, break-

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS 37

ing down racial lines and stretching hands to one
another throughout the Roman empire. Grant
that the empire finally conquered the new church ;
nevertheless, so far as life was really worth living
throughout Christendom for many centuries, it
was by virtue of a dawning sense of a common
humanity ; it was by a law of justice, mercy, and
kindness. When these ideas caught men in the
darkest periods, there was light and hope and the
promise of better things.

Take again such an unpromising field of illustra-
tion as the English rule in India. Grant for a mo-
ment (what yet remains to be proved by the test of
time) that the English rule has succeeded. So far
as it has succeeded at all, it has not been by the
rule of might and artillery, by fear and suspicion
and hate. Success has come by virtue of English
justice, clemency, humanity; not by distrust of
the people, but by trust and sympathy, through a
few great administrators, like the Lawrences, who
have had at heart the good of the Indian popula-
tions. Sir Andrew Eraser, after more than thirty
years of wide experiences in the civil service of
India, is quoted as saying, " Courtesy, justice, and
freedom from caprice are the qualities in the
Briton that win the love and gratitude of our

38 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Indian fellow-subjects." Take out of the history
of India the men whose lives have been inspired
with the vision of democracy, Plutarch's type of
men, and any day the whole fabric of Indian
government would go to wreck. There is just
enough of the spirit of democracy in it to save it.
This line of historical illustration could be indefi-
nitely prolonged.

The growth of democracy has come often where
you would not have looked for it, through the slow
ripening of the conservative side of human nature,
through the growing sympathy and good will of
the strong, ijioved no doubt by the piteous cry of
the weak. The great Alfred was a king, but he
was also a lover of his people, and an educator,
a man of essential justice, whose life was an effort
of public service. Shall we deny to such a man
the name of democrat because he lived before
formal democracy had come to birth ? Washing-
ton was an aristocrat and a conservative, but be-
ginning on the side of his conservatism, and always
cautious, his devotion to the popular good made
him as real, if not as advanced, a democrat as Jeffer-
son was. Gladstone's life again affords a singular
instance of the development of genuine democracy
out of the solid conservative and aristocratic core

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS 39

of a Tory beginning. What gave this great leader
of men such growth in his confidence in the people,
and in democratic ideals, and that too in an age
when doubt and scepticism filled the air ? The
man's generous public spirit, his disinterested con-
secration to the welfare of the people, his profound
religiousness, converted him from Toryism to be a
democratic leader in the best sense of the word.
Under whatever forms you find a similar sense of
justice, popular sympathies, unselfishness, faith in
a righteous universe, you will see the roots of ideal
democracy. Which kind of human material would
you rather have for building up democracy, —
Alfred and William of Orange, Washington and
Gladstone, slowly indeed going your way and
cautiously trying every step, yet absolutely trust-
worthy and ready to die for your interests; or
the jaunty crowd on parade in the streets singing
the " Marseillaise," perhaps with bribes in their
pockets, and surmising that every man also has his
price ?

Glance now at certain familiar and obvious les-
sons in the working of practical democracy. The
world has tried from time out of mind the patri-
archal method of family government. It was the rule
of the man over wife and children and domestics.

40 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

It was from above downward. It rested in
vested authority. The world is now instinctively
trying on an immense scale the utmost democratic
theory in the family relation. It discards the
word " obey " from the marriage service. There
is no rule of the one over the others ; there is no
rule from above downward. The only authority
is the simple and natural authority of the greater
wisdom and experience of the stronger character.
There is no rod, there is no compulsion. The rule
is by persuasion and force of sympathy. It is a
little system of voluntary cooperation. There are
thousands of such families in America.

I shall have occasion later to speak of the rela-
tion of democracy to the family. My point here
simply is that this free and democratic form of
family life, whose bond is in mutual respect and
love, makes the happiest, the most successful, and
the most vital type of home that the world has
seen. It is a whole range above mere conventional
monogamy, wherein the man is the master. It has
doubtless come to stay. We shall by and by be
able to translate the menacing results of too indul-
gent divorce courts into the positive terms of a
great and hopeful secular movement that promises
at last to lift the condition of women everywhere

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS 41

from the bondage of man's individual authority, to
a freedom and sacredness quite essential to human
progress.

Another lesson in modern democracy is found
in the schoolroom. It is within the easy recollec-
tion of many persons that school government was
largely a tyranny, however benevolently intended.
Its authority was Hke the law of the Medes and
Persians. The rule was from above down, and the
pupils were supposed simply to obey. There was
often savage punishment. The parent was thought
to be bound to uphold the dignity of the school-
master, even when the latter was in the wrong.
We have now in a multitude of schools virtual
democracy in actual working. Among thousands
of pupils, for example, in the city of Philadelphia,
the forms of democratic government under the
name of " The School City " have been actually
made to work. The George Junior Republic is a
well-known instance of the working of this experi-
ment among a peculiarly difficult class of youth.
Without taking such systems of school discipline
too seriously, they nevertheless indicate the kind of
results to be expected in making even children
partners in their own government. From any
point of view they constitute quite startling evi-

42 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

dence to the fact that there is that element in human
nature which instinctively responds to the human
touch of trust, respect, and confidence, to the appeal
for generosity and chivalry. There is a social and
cooperative quality in human nature upon the exist-
ence and the development of which you can count.

It might be added that all the success which has
been reached in the treatment of moral defectives
in such institutions as Elmira, N.Y., Concord and
Sherborn in Massachusetts, has been the fruit of a
definite approach to democratic methods. The
truth is, that the social nature of which democracy
is the expression is in the hardest and most aban-
doned men.

Again, you see actual democracy at work in
the numberless clubs, guilds, granges, and lodges,
and in the humane and beneficent societies through-
out the country. I wish that I might say the
same of all the churches. But the churches are
too often bound by traditions which ally them
with forms of absolutism and authority. They are
too often also oppressed by the despotism of
money or by some form of the one-man power.
They are often divided by shameful factions. A
club or a grange is therefore a better instance of
the success of the democratic principle than the

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS 43

church is. In the club there is what Professor F. H.
Giddings calls *' like-mindedness " in a far more
developed form than any one can as yet find it in
the state. Good fellowship, sympathy, common
ends, a certain definite cooperation, bind the mem-
bers together. The attitude is one of freedom,
confidence, mutual respect. Faction is intolerable,
as compulsion is. Persuasion is the rule. All
willingly bear the common burdens. The use of
the ballot is merely to determine the pathway of
common consent and pleasure.

Do you remind me that the club is the example
of the regime of anarchism, seeing that any mem-
ber can leave it at his pleasure ? So much the
better. For this proves that it is a highly success-
ful and quite orderly form of free democratic
organization. Why may we not discover that the
democracy is constantly developing under various
outward forms, some freer than others, while it
yet remains democratic at heart ?

I have wished to emphasize the fact that politics
is only one field among others in the illustration of
the modern working of the democratic ideal. It
is the one where for many evident reasons the
world is as yet at the beginning of its magnificent
democratic venture. The town governments of

44 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

early New England indeed point the way for our
instruction. But how far their simple business was
from the enormous problems of the modern state !
How easy it was for a few hundred men who
all knew one another, like the members of a clan,
and all went to one church, to cooperate for the
few common concerns of their community ! And
yet Charles Francis Adams has shown that human
nature in the towns of Massachusetts was often as
mean, narrow, factious, prejudiced, and selfish,
albeit all were of the one Anglo-Saxon blood, as
human nature often shows itself to-day in the hete-
rogeneous populations of New York or Chicago.
If the wheels of democracy creaked in the Uttle
town of Quincy, who wonders that the vast wheels
of the nation rumble and groan under their enor-
mous burdens !

But however distant from our time true democ-
racy is, there is hardly anywhere on record an
instance of such success in democratic government
as we have already achieved in America. Presi-
dent Charles W. EHot in his essays has made a
masterly demonstration of this fact. This may be
held along with the most critical sense of our na-
tional faiHngs and perils. Find if you can any
other instance on such a colossal scale where the

IDEALISM AND THE FACTS 45

welfare of men has been so largely regarded.
Find a period in history where the average man
ever had a better chance to bring up a happy
family. Moreover, so far as we have succeeded
in our grand venture, we have made this success
on the lines of actual democracy, on the founda-
tion of equal rights, of mutual tolerance, of grow-
ing respect for all kinds and conditions of men,
not because we have compelled men, but on the
whole have persuaded them. Our success has
gone with the development of the humane senti-
ments, and our failures have been the failure of
our humanity. Our success has been the outcome,
not of men's selfishness, their distrust, their hate
and jealousies, but of the precious leaven of men's
essential religion, their faith in one another, their
faith in justice, their faith in progress, their faith
in a righteous universe.

VI

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY: NEW MEANINGS

A SINGULAR change is coming about in the mean-
ing of the words " democracy " and " democratic."
The emphasis of these words was originally in the
ending, which signified ** rule," " might," " force."
The common idea was that the many got the reins
which once the few had held. The few must hence-
forth do what the many required. It is the common
idea now, not that all rule, but that a majority rule,
and the others submit. Not even the wisest
Greeks were able to conceive of such a thing
as that all ranks of men, barbarians as well as
Greeks, should rule. The many were slaves, born,
as Greeks thought, to remain slaves. Neither did
the framers of our Constitution quite face their
own principles so as to provide that all men should
have a hand in the gigantic " tug of war." That
women also should take a hand in it was hardly
dreamed. Property, even mules, long continued
to vote in most of the states, while men were dis-
franchised and women were neglected.

46

'DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 47

I have repeatedly used the word "cooperation "
as expressing the free or voluntary democratic
ideal. This is the dominant thought in actual
democracy. It signifies, not so much the rule of
some and the obedience of others, as a plan of
willing cooperation, where all take part, all modify
the process, and all share in the results. For ex-
ample, in the true home, in the good school, in the
club or the real church, in the model town, we de-
bate, we hear and weigh objections, we persuade
and convert, we defer and wait, we respect others'
opinions, we seek finally to act together. If ever
we coerce a protesting minority, as the Tories in
England, for example, have coerced the Dissenters,
such an act is as alien to the ideal democracy as
would be the compulsion of the wife by the hus-
band in a true home. In a just and civilized de-
mocracy one can hardly imagine such compulsion.

The word " government " itself no longer means
what it meant to our forefathers. We do not obey
rulers, we obey laws. They are not other men's
laws constraining us ; they are the laws which we
ourselves have a hand in making. The average
citizen has no need to think of a constable. The
constable, or the policeman, is in fact one of his
own fellow-citizens, as truly as are the officers of

48 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the board of health, who may come on occasion to
fumigate his house, for his own safety as well as
for the sake of the neighbors. Suppose now that a
high-handed majority, or a ring of scheming men,
procure the passage of bad or foolish laws, and
proceed to execute them. The general principle
still prevails. Even the fooHsh laws have become
for the time ours. Let us give them trial, as we
should wish others to do if we had passed them.
Or, if they are really bad, let us persuade our
fellow-citizens to join with us in altering them.
Our case is different from that which we find
under any other system of government. Every-
thing depends upon mutual trust. On the whole
we believe that our neighbors will be fair, as we
wish to be fair to them. Even when they go
wrong, we still trust that they will be ready to do
justice as soon as we can show them what justice
is. We can afford to be patient with them, as we
ask patience in turn. The more completely we
respect their manhood and the more we expect
justice at their hands, — such is human nature ! —
the more we always tend to secure. Other men,
we believe, feel and behave as we do ourselves
under similar treatment. A general habit of good
will, tempered with the necessary intelligence, is

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 49

thus the characteristic and ruling attitude of men
toward one another in a democracy. There is no
other intelligent attitude. Nothing else works so
well.

A good illustration is to be found in the remark-
able self-restraint with which a great party yielded
to the method of law and order in the famous
Hayes-Tilden electoral contest in 1877. Many in-
deed felt aggrieved at the result of the decision ;
but the method of peaceable arbitration by a con-
gressional commission commended itself to the
whole people as just, and accordingly a majority
of the nation yielded their own will with a reason-
able degree of good temper to an actual minority
of voters. This result could not have been possi-
ble at the dictation of force.

So likewise every day men yield to the arbitra-
ment of the courts. The courts have force behind
them to compel obedience to their decrees. But
most men would yield to the courts, even if there
were no force in reserve. The courts are not the
courts of another power or of another party; they-
are the courts of all the men who resort to them.
Obeying their decrees, men obey their best selves.
Perhaps the chief, if not the only, reason for an
elective judiciary is that this system makes it

50 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

somewhat more evident that the courts are the
people's courts, who have chosen the judges them-
selves.

The greatest danger from the existence of a
proletariat without the suffrage, whether white or
black, is that a multitude are required to obey laws
in the making of which they have no share. The
mere form of asking a man's advice or opinion about
the institutions to which he is subject tends to ele-
vate his self-respect and to make him content with
the working of those institutions. The practice of
democracy becomes a daily discipline in good will.

Time was when men thought that the wealth
or prosperity of a merchant, a city, or a nation,
must be at the expense of others. Success con-
sisted in a man's getting the property of others.
That some should be rich, it was thought, a
multitude should be poor. That one nation should
prosper, it was well that others should be un-
prosperous. No doubt many still think so. We
often hear strange talk about " exploiting " the
markets of the Orient.

We are at last finding humanity in business.
The ideas of willingness and cooperation as the
basis of the modern organization of government
are coming to control even the getting of wealth.

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 5 1

True wealth flows from the freest possible ex-
change of goods and services. The bargain that
leaves one party poorer is a bad bargain.
In the long run trade would obviously cease if
such bargains prevailed. The rivalry that pushes
men to the wall and leaves them bankrupt is
as ruinous in the end as robbery or war. The
eternal laws of the world are against the men or
the nations who imagine that they can prosper by
getting more than they give, by enriching them-
selves while they make others poor. The rich
city is that in which the largest number of people
produce and also consume the greatest volume
of commodities of every sort. That any group
of people in the city should suffer hunger and
want is equivalent to economical disease, so far
imperilling the civic life. The rich nation is that
in which all parts of the land both produce and
enjoy to the utmost ; it is that nation which is
brought into the freest relationship of exchange
with other prosperous nations, who give and take,
to the mutual enrichment of all. It is not the
poverty of India or of Spain that enriches the
United States, but the growing prosperity of
France, Germany, England, Canada. The well-to-
do neighbor needs what we can make ; the poor

52 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

neighbor cannot afford to pay us for our goods.
Have we not amply demonstrated this fact in our
American Union, where every rise in the tide of
the prosperity of the South or the West means, on
the whole, and often immediately, the flow of new
wealth to the older communities of the East?
Maine and Massachusetts do not grow poor be-
cause Alabama and North Carolina flourish.

We do not shut our eyes to the existence of
enormous commercial and industrial antagonisms ;
they still survive with the traditions of the era of
war. We are aware that there is a kind of brutal
and bitter competition which is thought to consist
in strangling one's rivals. We insist that this is
as stupid as crime and murder. Whereas it was
once the fashion of the world, we urge that the
new spirit in modern civilization repudiates such
competition and antagonism. The loud demand
of the commercial world is not for men who can
destroy their antagonists and get what belongs to
others, but for men who can produce results to
the advantage of every one, and beyond what they
are ever paid for. Even the Rockefellers and
Carnegies are forced in sheer self-defence to try
to show that their administration has resulted in
the enrichment of the people by the cheapening

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 53

of the processes of providing oil and steel ! Mr.
Carnegie himself says that no man has a right to
found a monarchy of wealth. He is bound sub-
stantially to distribute it for the community out of
whose joint enterprise and organization it arose.

The thought of wealth as cooperative in its
source rather than the result of mere individual
enterprise grows steadily Thus even in respect
of that most material of all things, money, a hu-
mane, a moral, a spiritual conception is lifting
men from the realm of mere struggle to get and
to keep, to a realm of peace, of good will, of com-
bined effort upward instead of the effort of con-
flict. The prosperous world — all the political
economies assure us — must be a world where
men have learned to cooperate most effectively,
where the many not only produce but consume
and enjoy, and therefore make the larger demands
for universal production. This is democracy.

A new principle enters at once into practical
politics. The common idea has been that each
party must antagonize the other party, that each
majority must win at the expense of its opponents,
that the gain of one party must be the loss of the
other. The doctrine of the spoils of office was
the legitimate outcome of the prevalent idea that

54 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the function of parties in the state was to fight
one another. Nothing could be further from the
purpose of democracy. The business of a party
is not to fight another party and get away the
offices for itself. But one party supplements
another. Each party is here to bring forward its
contribution of a thought or a purpose for the
common good.

This is the opposite to what men would have
said in Florence or Pisa. They would have liked
to see the opposite faction weak, foolish, badly led,
disorganized. Men often say the same to-day.
Republicans like to see the Democratic party weak
and ineffective. The truth is that we want in our
government all the wisdom, virtue, power, and
ability that we can possibly assemble. All integ-
rity and sagacity discoverable in any direction is
a part of our common political capital. Any folly,
vice, or weakness is a defect in the whole, a men-
ace to the nation, like a running sore in the body.

Thus everywhere to-day the ideal of " team
playing" prevails. Each strong man puts in his
power and skill to make the whole team victorious.
The stronger each is, the stronger the team.
Does the team then wish to see other teams weak ?
Does Harvard wish to cripple Yale or Princeton ?

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 55

This is worthy of savages, not of men. The
stronger Yale and Harvard and Princeton all are^
the more notable work each will do. The
stronger all of them are, the stronger becomes the
representative play of all the men of America.
Is the end of the play or the work to crush others ?
Is the victory of one the humiliation or hurt of
the other ? This is the idea of barbarians, not of
civilized men.

The one aim of all the effort is that the nation
shall be filled with life, skill, energy, courage, and
the more mutual friendliness. And likewise the
ultimate end of all the work of the world is no
longer to vanquish others ; it is to secure every-
where the means whereby the power, virtue, prod-
uct, manhood, civilization, of each people shall
enrich all peoples. If men are evidently able to
live thus together in a city, if they can live to-
gether so in a nation, who shall doubt that they
must come to live in some similar cooperation
of all the nations ?

The idea of democracy as, essentially, the co-
operation of various minds acting willingly to-
gether, is a view so comparatively modern that
multitudes do not as yet credit it as practicable.
You will find it dawning in the thought of the

56 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

little group of Stoic philosophers. It is the most
important contribution of the Hebrew and the
Christian teachings of religion. For these reli-
gions were fundamentally democratic. But it is
also the result of New-World conditions, for the
first time giving free play to teachings which only
the few heretofore were in a position to com-
prehend. All men are finding out that you can-
not long force or compel men. You must show
them good temper, you must respect them and
use conciliation. It is the old story of the sun,
the wind, and the traveller, exempHfied in a
thousand new relations.

A tremendous objection against the idea and the
name of democracy is now seen to disappear. A
democratic regime was once thought to mean a
vulgar mediocrity. You cut off the heads of all
the tallest flowers in the garden and leave the rest.
In a democracy of force and antagonism this was
doubtless the case. In a democracy of antago-
nisms, each selfish faction seeks to turn out of office
or even to destroy the ablest men who appear in
the opposite party. The system of antagonism
appeals to the worst men and not to the noblest.

It is otherwise in the good democracy. There
is here no levelling downward ; there is a ceaseless

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 57

force working on each and all to uplift. There is
a demand for the best ; there is the will in each
group to use all the ability which other groups
offer. The democratic theory is not to turn great
men out of office, but to secure the services of
such men. Do not fear that in a people once
educated to demand the best things and the best
service, there will be any permanent satisfaction
with mediocrity.

We are brought from a new point of view to the
origin or source of the democratic movement.
Most people imagine that it chiefly uses one of
the centrifugal forces in human nature ; that is,
the desire of each to assert his liberty. That this
is a legitimate part of the democratic motive no
one can doubt. But the opposite or centripetal
force in our nature, which works to socialize and
unify men, is the deeper and far the more effective
part of constructive democracy. The one force
liberates men's minds from prejudices, but the
other urges upon them the needful sense of a
common aim.

See how little the old doctrine of laissez faire
has to do with real democracy. Laissez faire is
strictly the doctrine of the individualist, not of de-
mocracy. The strong individual likes to be let

SS THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

alone. He wishes his freedom to do as he pleases.
He can defend himself, he can compete and suc-
ceed. He is apt to have small sympathy for the
man of only average power and intelligence. He
always praises his own qualities, self-reliance and
daring, or perhaps cunning. He may be blind to
the fact how much he depends upon others whose
labor or skill he is shrewd enough to use for his
own advantage. The robber, the monopolist, the
tyrant, the slaveholder, the politician at times,
approves the doctrine of laissez faire.

The democracy, on the contrary, exists for mu-
tual help. It cannot afford to let things alone, or to
let men alone who may be profiting at the loss or
injury of others. The ideal of the democracy is
not that a few trees shall lift their heads above the
rest and grow strong, but that by admirable arbori-
culture the whole forest shall flourish. Neither
is there any inconsistency between this ideal and
that of the development of each individual tree.
It will be found that the best democrat is the
noblest type of the individual man. The qualities
of self-reliance and courage will be forever in de-
mand. We purpose to eHminate cunning, arro-
gance, and the disregard for others' rights.

We discover now a new meaning in the word

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 59

" sovereignty." There is indeed no longer abso-
lute and infallible sovereignty such as men once
imagined to inhere in the head of a government.
We do not say, " The sovereign can do no wrong."
The sovereign, whether father, king, or president,
often does wrong, falls into error, can and must
make amends and even apologies. The rule is
the same whether the fiction of sovereignty is
vested in one man, in a Parliament or a Congress,
or in the assembly of all the voters of a nation.
The exercise of sovereignty is a mode of social
experiment. All sovereignty is limited by the
degree of the wisdom, the experience, the virtue,
and the good will of those who for the moment
exercise it.

No claim of sovereignty, whether of a prince or
of an assembly, for example, to take or give away
land, or to compel obedience to a decree, no show
of power to back the claim, no force of an insistent
majority, can ever make an unjust act righteous or
a fooHsh act wise. Every new exercise of sov-
ereignty is a new social experiment, based on the
experience of a succession of experiments whereby
men have tried to accomplish political ends. Every
exercise of sovereignty is a challenge to the intelli-
gence and conscience of each citizen. Before the

6o THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

individual yields his will to any kind of sovereignty,
he is entitled to be satisfied that the action required
of him is just. No external authority is sufficient
to rule any man's will, unless the inward authority
that makes the man a person bids him likewise
obey.

Here is the tragedy of the individual in the
power of the tyrant, of the tribunal, or of the mul-
titude— Jesus before Pilate, Joan of Arc before
the English judges, Thomas More on trial for
treason. All we can say is that, through the age-
long lessons of tragedy and error, the world is
learning on both sides — on the side of those who
head governments, and also on the side of the dar-
ing individual who criticises or even disobeys his
government — to be modest, tolerant, and kindly.
If the prophets and teachers make mistakes, it is
no wonder that the people and their judges and
presidents make mistakes too.

Try now to interpret the marvellous process going
on through all history and never so tremendously
as to-day. It is as if you had a view of the slow
making of crystals. On the one hand is the murky
mixture, the material still mostly in solution,
chaotic and insignificant. At the first glance one
might be ready to throw the whole upon the

DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY 6 1

rubbish heap. But watch more closely. Mighty
mysterious forces are at work ; already down in
the bottom of your retort you can distinguish the
beautiful lines of the crystals. The facet of a
single crystal is significant and prophetic of what
the whole process is for. So with human society.
Do you say that democracy has never as yet been
tried ? True, it has never prevailed, or been tried
on any large scale. You see it only approximately
in the process, but as far as it has been tried, de-
mocracy has never failed. Moreover, you can
trace the prophetic lines of the forming angles and
facets underneath all the discord and chaos. Who
can deny that there was never so much of it in the
world as at this time, which begins preeminently to
call for it.'*

VII

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT?

The idea of the purpose of government is pass-
ing through an almost revolutionary change.
This fact needs distinct attention. Even very in-
telligent men often fail to perceive how different
the ends of government have become from those
which mostly prevailed less than two centuries
ago.

Two chief ends have usually been set forth to
justify the existence and the cost of government.
They were both peculiarly suited to an aristocratic
social order. One of these supposed ends was the
protection of the subjects of a government from
their enemies. A ruling military caste, whose
pastime was war, first made enemies and then
undertook the task of defending their people from
attacks which they themselves provoked. A con-
siderable part of the history of Christendom has
consisted in the record of this sort of governmental
business. Read Machiavelli and you would sup-
pose the normal Hfe of a prince was in aggran-

62

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 63

dizing himself at the expense of his neighbors and
his people. There are those still, hypnotized by
mediaevalism, who, when asked what the govern-
ment is, think first of the war department.

See now how wonderfully the ancient defensive
purpose of government is dropping out of sight !
It is already traditional rather than actual; it
exists more in men's vague fears and suspicions
than in the real conditions of modern international
society. The time has passed when a king or a
president can successfully aggrandize himself or
his nation by making war upon his neighbors. As
the distinguished Frenchman, Molinari, shows in
**The Society of To-morrow," the new economic
conditions of the world tend everlastingly to make
war ruinous, not only to the people who must pay
for it, but to the very class who used to profit by it.

Let us ask the question : Who are the enemies
of a modern state, and where are they.!* What
enemies has the United States ? The only answer
is that we have no enemies, and except by our
own fault are not likely to have them. No
savages, such as once frightened our forefathers,
exist any longer to swarm over our borders. The
Old- World terror of mysterious barbarian hordes
from unknown parts of the earth has vanished.

64 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

We map in our geographies all the savage tribes
that remain. The savages are now seen to be
simply backward and rather wretched people
whom we must pity and civilize.

Look now at our neighbors. They are as civil-
ized on the whole as we are. England, Germany,
Russia, France, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the
rest no more mean to attack us than we mean to
attack them. Men over the seas are like us.
Treat them with justice, fairness, and human
respect, and they respond to such treatment, pre-
cisely as we do ourselves. Let us mind our own
business and take proper pains to do justly toward
others, and we have no cause to fear the evil
designs of any nation. So far has the world got
on since the time of the Spanish Armada !

In America, moreover, we have inaugurated a
splendid experiment in governmental union. Mil-
lions of people who under Old-World conditions of
disunion would have set up barriers and fortifi-
cations against one another, and looked on one
another with suspicious eyes, and supported each
its own army to watch the others, now live har-
moniously together without so much as a custom-
house between them. The plan which sceptics
only a little more than a century ago called impos-

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 6$

sible actually works. It is a fresh fruit of the
new idea of the solidarity of man. For men of
the very same racial stocks who once slew one
another — Celts and Saxons and Teutons and
Slavs — here live peacefully together and never
think of the savage feuds which once separated
them. Who says this is not a world of ideas, or
that ideas, once embodied, do not alter the face of
society ?

My point is, that on a very grand scale the
chief purpose of government, in the United States
at least, has properly ceased to be defensive.
What we still pay for military outfit is mainly the
insurance money, made necessary by our habit
of keeping incendiary material in our national
house — fireworks, gunpowder, especially the in-
tangible explosives — sundry suspicions, fears,
covetousness to possess territory not our own,
rivalry to make a brave show of force in the
world.

The second main purpose of government has
been supposed to be social order. The govern-
ment, men think, is an arrangement by which the
good and wise (or, shall we say the strong and
clever.?) keep the ill-disposed in order and make
them behave. Government is exerted from above

66 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

upon those beneath. The word carries the idea
of authority. The king, the nobiHty, or a domi-
nant party enforces its will upon the rest of the
people, or at best exercises a protectorate and
plays the patron over them. This aristocratic
notion of the government, like militarism, naturally
survives under the forms of democracy. There
are those who never think of the government
without thinking of the criminal law and the
policeman and his club.

It is enough to say here, that the necessity of
government for keeping people in order has always
been exaggerated. The more you insist upon this
object of government the more difficult it is to
secure it. There was never a more Draconian
system of criminal law and punishments than that
which the governing class imposed upon the
English people till within a hundred years. No
government ever did less good or developed more
lawless subjects. All history shows that people
behave well not from compulsion so much as from
suggestion, because decent habits prevail, and
their neighbors expect a certain standard of con-
duct. Even among savages the people habitually
obey the common opinion of their tribe. The
rank and file of mankind have no intention to do

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 67

injustice or violence to one another. Witness the
admirable behavior of enormous crowds in all our
cities, sometimes under great excitement. The
use of government to enforce order is for the
few and not for the many. •

Turn now to the new and positive purpose of all
modern civilized government. Few as yet see
how immense and far-reaching is that familiar
definition of democratic government, which makes
it to be "of the people, by the people, and for the
people." The interests of each are the interests
of all. Here, as in a nutshell, is the idea of the
solidarity of mankind. Here is the idea that each
personality is sacred. Here is the faith in a uni-
verse in which it is actually possible to harmonize
the interests of all men.

The new idea touches, and quite alters, the
meaning of the word " government." We do not
any longer mean a ruUng class or caste, but simply
an administrative order which we, the people, have
set up, and which we maintain much as the com-
mon owners of a water-power maintain a plant and
a staff of workmen to manage it for them.

The principle is the same in each department of
our threefold system of government, the local, the
state, and the national administration. Each form

68 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

is a method of cooperation for the welfare of all
the people comprised under it. This is the one
purpose of the government which might more
accurately be called the " management " than the
" government." A scheme for a part only of the
people — for sailors only, or manufacturers, or old
soldiers, and not for the good of all the people —
might have been tolerable in Egypt under the
Pharaohs, but it is intolerable for a democratic
government.

Mark, also, that the government, in the new
sense of the word, can never create or effect any-
thing by itself, except at the expense and by the
cooperation of the people. It can hardly be
better than the people who constitute it, — efficient
if they are slovenly, economical if they are waste-
ful. Its means, its machinery, its sources of in-
come, are only such as the people furnish. Its
officials are merely public servants. You apprize
their worth and value by the great standard proved
when men came to the teacher of Galilee and
asked : Who is the greatest ? And he told them,
" He that is the greatest among you shall be your
servant or minister." This is what we really
think, when we honestly think at all, about our
public men in America. The greatest man, like

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 69

Washington, or Lincoln, is doubtless the man who
does the most for the public welfare.

Without entering here upon controverted ques-
tions, let us examine some of the larger enterprises
which we are all. agreed that it is well for us to
intrust to our government to administer. For
example, the postal service evidently conduces to
the welfare, happiness, and enlightenment of all
the people. We can indeed conceive that some
mighty " trust " of express companies might render
this service for us, possibly at less expense ; never-
theless, few even of the capitalist class would vote
to transfer this gigantic business with its necessary
powers to any private corporation to be run for
the profit of a few.

The national government also safeguards and
lights numerous harbors and thousands of miles
of navigable waterways. How else could this mag-
nificent work in behalf of the commerce of the
world be effected ? Hardly could Tolstoi" himself
find fault with this function of modern government.
The same must be said of various great internal
improvements, such as providing levees for conti-
nental rivers and irrigating waste lands, touching
the interest of whole commonwealths for all
time. The fact is, certain great departments of

70 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the national government have grown up to fit new
needs which even the far-sighted framers of our
Constitution could not foresee. Who ever dreamed
that the government must establish a weather
bureau, or maintain watchmen at every port to
defend the sheep and cattle of its people from dis-
ease, or employ experts to study the various pests
that destroy growing crops ? Or that government
must keep agents busy in every part of the world
to report on the industries and products of dis-
tant populations ? Who shall say that the Presi-
dent's cabinet will not sometime contain a secretary
of the department of peace, whose aim shall be to
promote in every way the common interests and
the good will of nations ?

Examine now each of the great divisions of gov-
ernment, the legislative, the executive, and the
judicial, and we are astonished by the growth of
a new mass of business which never could have
been before the age of the steam-engine, electricity,
and the telegraph, and the closer social order which
these instruments effect. Congress labors with
matters touching interstate commerce, the manage-
ment of transcontinental railways, the question of
open or restricted immigration of people from the
banks of the Danube, from Armenia, from China.

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 71

Less and less does the treaty-making power con-
cern itself with questions of war. The new ques-
tions before the world are about the use of
arbitration, reciprocity, open doors of trade, com-
mon and growing international interests.

The questions before the national courts touch
also all manner of nice and delicate industrial rela-
tions. Meanwhile, the more society becomes co-
operative, the less need there is for courts except
for purposes of friendly arbitration.

See now what the state government accom-
plishes for the welfare of the people. Here is
a species of government which, except for its
slender support of a petty force of militia,
made up of men who join it more for recreation
than for any very serious purpose, has already
sloughed off all military functions. And yet
the work of each state government steadily in-
creases. Legislation grows more complicated
every year to match the complex structure of
society. Laws are largely for the sake of public
order, convenience, and safety. They are social
rather than moral. They concern education, the
public health, the conditions of labor, especially
as touching the interests of women and children ;
they regard the proper limitation and control of

^2 THE Si^IRlt OF DEMOCRACY

dangerous businesses like the sale of liquor or
explosives.

Who cared for these humble things in the Eng-
land or Germany of six hundred years ago ? No
Parliament definitely sought to interfere with the
ravages of typhoid fever, smallpox, or consumption.
No one prevented little children from being starved,
tortured, or oppressed. No one sought out para-
sites to destroy the gypsy moth. No one built
hospitals for the insane or parental schools for
wayward boys and girls. We have space only
to suggest the breadth of the scope of the admin-
istration of a modern state government. The idea
everywhere, though still imperfectly carried out,
is the health, the. welfare, and the betterment of
the people.

Grant, if you please, that our state governments
are prone to be meddlesome, that there is a good
deal of needless legislation, that the state authori-
ties arrogate power to themselves at the expense
of " home rule " in towns and cities. Neverthe-
less, it is hard to see how in modern society, with
its rapid influx and change of population, we
could properly care for certain common interests
on which social life depends, — the highways
for instance, or, again, for the innumerable waifs

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 73

and strays, the helpless, the feeble, the defective
classes, — without some general organization be-
tween the city and the nation. No easy doctrine
of laissez faire can provide for the necessities of a
populous industrial state. Modern society cannot
bear to see children suffer or grow up stunted
and dwarfed, or go without generous opportu-
nities of education. Civilized society cannot exist
under conditions which submerge a tenth of the
people below the line of decent housing and
living.

Observe again the immense change which has
come about in recent times in the nature of local
government. Recall the London of the fourteenth
century, shut in by walls, unpaved, dark at night,
full of prowling ruffians ready to assault and
plunder. London "politics" once consisted in
the business of maintaining barriers and train-
bands and keeping order among turbulent fac-
tions. The politics of a modern city, on the
contrary, consists, or should properly consist, in
providing all manner of public advantage which
no individual citizens or groups of citizens could
procure for themselves. Politics now has to do
with unlimited supplies of pure water, with a
comprehensive system of sewers, with miles of

74 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

well-paved and brilliantly lighted streets, with
splendid public buildings, parks, and grounds, with
schools and libraries, with lectures and musical
entertainments free for all. We have no walls
or moats. Our watchmen defend us against fire
and against the ravages of disease. Even the
police for the most part serve to remind us of
our tacit common agreement to live together in
peace, rather than to hold the rod of compulsion
over us. Crime is indeed still a peril, and we hear
too much of it. But it is obviously a survival
from barbarism. The modern criminal is no brave
Robin Hood, the pride of a county ; he is a
defective. The mystery which once wrapped him
about has vanished. He had his excuse when
men lived under a despotism ; he is out of place
in a government of the people. Make the gov-
ernment a better democracy, and all excuse for
crime is taken away.

Local government evidently has no other
proper design except to procure benefit for the
people. Show the modern city that any public
scheme or undertaking is intended only for the
good of a class, and that scheme or undertaking
must be sooner or later abandoned. Demonstrate
that any enterprise will enhance the welfare of

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 75

the citizens, and the enterprise must be in due
time adopted. Even in the most corrupt cities
this idea is recognized. The worst local govern-
ment, as in the city of Philadelphia, actually pro-
vides, with however great waste and inefficiency,
schools, water, hygienic care, defence against fire,
parks, highways, and lights. The taxes must at
least be made to appear to go for the benefit of
the people and not as a tribute to a class or a
tyrant. Theoretically, they buy for all what
individuals could not by themselves provide. To
have gained the democratic theory of the purpose
of governmental taxes is a vast step forward. It
is not strange that we have not yet worked it out
to its true results.

A most interesting consequence follows from
our argument. Modern political organization, or
government, as we still call it, seeks the welfare
of the people. This does not mean merely com-
fort, health, books, schools, recreation. It means
development in all men of those qualities which
Plato and Aristotle had in view for the few, when
they taught that the aim of the state is not merely
to enable men to live, but to "live nobly." We
have in mind an ideal of an intelligent, high-
minded, generous, and public-spirited people. The

'je THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

qualities which men once held were possible only
to an aristocratic regime, we propose for the
people of a democracy. Why should they not
possess these great humane qualities ? Shall we
ever be content with outward comfort, and expect
no corresponding advance in humanity ? Indeed,
no outward prosperity can be permanent without
the more excellent type of humanity fitted to
manage and appropriate it.

As soon as we fairly state the purpose for
which government in its true essence exists, all
monarchical, aristocratic, or despotic modes of
government are seen to be impossible. In the
various forms of the old regime you had an
arrangement by which the one or the few, or a
powerful faction of the people, subjected or pat-
ronized the others. The democratic arrangement
is simply one by which all plan together for the
common good.

Modern democracy is thus a problem of edu-
cation. It is not a piece of clever machinery so
much as a process of discipline in moulding
human nature. We put up with its faults and
lapses, as we bear with the mistakes which chil-
dren make in their lessons. The teacher or the
visitor might recite the lesson better, or might

WHAT IS GOVERNMENT? 'J'J

handle the glass in the laboratory with less break-
age ; meanwhile the pupil is learning lessons
which we agree are worth all the broken glass or
the teacher's expense of time and patience.

VIII.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

We may now venture to take up and explain the
old familiar catchwords of democracy, — " Liberty,
equality, fraternity." **A11 men are born free
and equal." "The consent of the governed."
What do these glib phrases mean ?

We have already observed that men are never
born free, but under a lien of all manner of obli-
gations. Not even a Nero or a Caligula, or a bar-
barian, is ever free to do as he pleases. In the
animal world the eccentric creature fixes atten-
tion upon himself at the risk of his life. No
right-minded man wishes to be free. He is glad
to own the bond of human solidarity whereby he
suffers and enjoys with all other men. What is
this thing, freedom, which we are all said to in-
herit as a natural birthright ? It is simply a man's
freedom to grow and be a man. It does not yet
fairly exist ; for it cannot be in a brutal or selfish
society. It is still an ideal to be attained.

Freedom thus belongs, not in the animal world,
78

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 79

where every creature is limited and menaced on
every side, but in the spiritual realm, wherein the
best or largest man takes his daily delight in the
exercise of his skill, his intelligence, and his hu-
manity. Freedom, at its best, is to be able to use
and to utter your nature. It is like the freedom
which they tell us is in every atom of the air or
every particle of the ether, even while pressed
upon, to answer back and make its own native
elasticity felt in every direction. Democracy is
the effort of each and all to attain this kind of
freedom. It is still almost a mockery to tell men
that they are born free. Free in Russia ! Free
in the squalid huts of the black belt of Alabama !
Free in the one-room cabins of east Tennessee, in
the slums of New York, in the coal mines of Penn-
sylvania ! What we can truthfully say is only
that we are working to secure freedom. This is
the trend of democracy.

For this reason we have courts and other insti-
tutions of justice. Society needs the free force of
every life. It is a matter of common interest if
any individual is crushed and weakened. For the
same reason, much of our legislation has its justi-
fication. A certain measure of order and rule is
necessary to freedom. The law says, " Keep to

80 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the right." This is for the larger freedom of
movement. The law compels vessels to show the
red and green lights ; this is for the greater free-
dom of all shipping. It is doubtful whether Her-
bert Spencer quite appreciated how largely the
spirit of freedom itself is obHged to clothe itself in
the forms of order and rule. Here then we see
mankind growing out of ancient and often very
barbarous conditions — from the liberty of wilful-
ness to the liberty of civilization.

What now shall we say of the old phrase that
men are born equal ? It is only in the ideal or
spiritual realm that this sentence has even the
semblance of truth. On the animal or physical
side men are not equal and are never Hkely to be.
No two are alike in any respect. In the market
of dollars they range all the way from indefinite
thousands a year down to a minus quantity. On
the physical plane most men believe in superior
and inferior peoples, nations, and races, and in
corresponding inequalities of privilege.

To proclaim men equal is to enter a higher
realm of thought. It is a tribute to the spiritual
nature of men. There is in each man what you
cannot measure in the scales or in the market., It
consists in all manner of human possibilities.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 8 1

The feeble child, who looks up to you from his
cradle in the meanest tenement-house, has powers
and qualities, for aught you know, beyond estima-
tion. There is no other basis in the democratic
doctrine of human equality than this. Men are
not equal considered as units.

Neither can we on any basis award men equal-
ity of power or influence. This would not be true
to the facts. Practical, political, economic, or
social equality merely means that each man may
utter himself and express his mind and have con-
sideration according to the weight and value of
his opinions, his character, and his manhood.
This is all that any man can fairly wish. A man
in human society is like a stone in a wall. He
counts for his size and weight, and only the size
and weight which belongs to him. This is enough.

You say : " One man, one vote. Is not this
political equality .? " I answer that the counting of
votes is a piece of machinery, a sort of a rude
makeshift. It is the bane of our American cities
that we have not yet contrived means whereby
men and their manhood, not numbers, count. It
is a bad democracy where only numbers count.
But even at the worst, that which makes the num-
bers and guides the direction of the vote, however

82 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

crude, is the personal influence, the thought, the
emotion, the persuasion, the humanity of men, and
women too. And this in proportion to moral size
and weight, for evil and for good. In the ultimate
analysis in New York City, Mr. Jerome and Mr.
Low count as men, not as units.

So much for equality in a democracy. The
democracy pays absolute respect to each man's
nature as a man and not as a unit, a machine, or a
brute, and in this trust in his spiritual nature, it
therefore gives each man a vote. But the democ-
racy never foresees the time when one man's per-
sonality will not outweigh another's. The ideal
democracy would simply be that where each per-
sonality exerted its full and free influence. Who
wishes more than this ?

Equality also obviously means that each man
shall have equal treatment before the laws. This
is not because men are equal. It is rather because
they are not equal, and many therefore are in
peril of injustice. Real equality of access and
opportunity and treatment in the courts is still only
the theory. No one claims that we more than
approximate to it. We have repeatedly seen differ-
ent treatment administered in America to Chinese
or Italian immigrants, or to poor boys, from what

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 83

is administered by our police in the case of well-
to-do offenders or anarchistic corporations. The
laws are rigorously executed against petty gam-
bling, while the gigantic manipulations of the stock
market go on without hindrance. Again, as be-
fore, the doctrine of equality expresses an ideal
toward which we are still working.

Take now the fine phrase " fraternity," and see
how much we mean by it. On the physical plane we
would all deny it immediately. We are not the lit-
eral and physical brothers of the Patagonians or the
natives of New Guinea. Blacks and whites, Hun-
garians and EngHsh, are not brothers. All these
people in the animal world would at one time have
been ready to spring at one another's throats.
What hinders them now ? Costly lessons of ex-
perience hinder them. But behind these lessons
is the faith to which we have just referred, quite
undemonstrable, but very real, that men ought to
be brothers. This is ideal and spiritual, but every
man at his best believes it. It is as a man that
you take the stranger, or the alien, by the hand
and treat him as you yourself would wish to be
treated. It is by virtue of your seeing in him,
under all the differences, the same nature, just, true,
benevolent, which constitutes your own best self.

84 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

I am bound to believe that this is the only kind
of " like-mindedness " which will ever safely bind
men together in a state. The sentiment about a
flag, or a common history, the want of which, Pro-
fessor Giddings thinks, separates men from fitness
for a common government, is superficial as com-
pared with the sentiment of humanity, to which
men of every race and of even the most distinct
traditions instinctively respond.

The spirit of fraternity is modest. It will not
easily flow in the presence of self-assertion or
arrogance. It catches as a flame from a spark at
the tone of respect and good temper. The man
possessed with this spirit does not think it worth
while to claim, " I am as good as you are." He
prefers to ask, " What can I do for you } " or,
better yet, " What can we do together ? " Frater-
nity begins when men join hands for common ends.
Americans and Englishmen and Frenchmen were
brothers when they sent their money to the reKef
of the sufferers from the eruption of Mount
Pelee.

" The consent of the governed " is another much
misunderstood phrase. Government, like other
institutions, grew without much consciousness at
first as to its justice. The barbarian, like the

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 85

child, begins by taking authority, rule, penalty, as
a plain matter of fact. Later he thinks to ask the
reason why. Consent or contract was surely never
the origin of government.

" The consent of the governed " is really an
ideal of justice, or of what ought to be. There
can be no rightful authority which man holds over
his brother to compel him to pay taxes against his
conscience or to force him to go to war in a shame-
ful cause. All authority at the last analysis arises
out of the moral ground of mutual obligation. We
owe one another, and we therefore owe society or
the state, whatever can be shown to be needful for
the common good, and only this. If on occasion
we are called upon to die for the state, we must at
least be given a voice in determining the justice of
the cause for which we must die. This seems a
universal rule. If we must at times yield our
judgment in deference to a majority of our fellows,
we do this in obedience to the same Golden Rule
which we wish them to observe as soon as we win
over a majority of the voters. Even when we
yield our wills, we will to yield them. Our con-
sciences, our thoughts, our manhood, remain
free.

Thus ** the consent of the governed," so far from

86 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

having ever been the origin of government, is the
goal and ideal toward which the slowly evolving
world is approaching. Political administration
that does not rest upon the general consent of the
people is already in unstable equilibrium. Child-
ish peoples the world over have begun to make the
same demands for liberty and justice which our
forefathers made at Runny mede, and again at
Marston Moor, and later at Bunker Hill. Rus-
sians, Porto Ricans, and Filipinos are coming to
see the same ideals.

IX

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY

I HAVE endeavored to suggest that democracy
is never merely a theory or method of government.
Its spirit enters into all human relations to alter
their form. Already certain principles seem
axiomatic. We ought all to have a share and a
voice in making and changing laws. No man
ought to hold the monopoly of rule, much less
transmit an inheritance of political power to his
children. No group of men ought to be able to
command us against our will to fight and slay
other men. But these principles go further than
the province of politics ; they go over into the
immense field of industrial relations. You cannot
admit the democratic spirit and ideal in politics
and keep it out of economics. To-day this ques-
tion of industrial democracy is perhaps the largest,
the most complicated, and also the most promising
which mankind is required to solve.

Again, as before, the easy stock phrases, liberty,
equality, fraternity, the consent of the governed,

87

88 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

demand the most careful and accurate interpreta-
tion.

Even more obviously than in politics, the realm
of industry is essentially cooperative. Do you
call it competitive ? But what is the harm in com-
petition as soon as men compete to give each
other the best possible service ? In the long run
they must do this or they cannot succeed. More-
over, they must join hands together in our modern
world in order even to compete. The social law of
cooperation, whether they see it or not, underlies
the whole industrial order.

The eternal laws, moreover, continually urge
closer cooperation and throw out of the economy
whatever does not permanently contribute to
human wealth. The demand for the democratic
spirit, which is essentially the spirit of the Golden
Rule, is demonstrably the most conspicuous re-
quirement of our age. So far as this is wanting,
you see agitation and flaming revolt. So far as
this spirit is present, as it is often present in
employers and employees, light is thrown on our
problem. Great profit-sharing enterprises are
everywhere on foot ; managers and men are learn-
ing to meet around a common table and to confer
together about their joint interests ; grand schemes

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 89

for accident insurance and old age pensions pre-
sage the coming of a new era.

Does any man now dare to claim that he is free
in the economic realm to do as he likes ? Does he
say, " I can use my own as I please ? " It is only
as an animal that a man has any such freedom,
which is limited on every hand by the freedom of
other brute creatures to trample upon him and
crush him. The truth is, we possess nothing that
is wholly our own to use as we please. All
material things to-day are a social product.

No rich man knows that he deserves or has
earned the property for which he holds the deeds
and titles. May he do as he likes with it?
May he close his mines and shut down his mills.?
On the contrary, humanity forbids him to do any-
thing socially hurtful with his property, itself a
social product. No human will may rightfully set
itself up against the social welfare.

Do you say that you have a right to be idle by
the month, that you are free to do what you will
with your skill, to waste it or burn up its results }
Yes, as a brute in a world where other brutes may
destroy the drones in the hive. As a man, your
skill and your strength are not your own. It is
preposterous that society — that is all of us —

90 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

must educate you and feed and clothe you, unless
you in turn stand ready to respond and add your
strength and your skill to the social whole. For
the wealth of all is the combined product of all,
smaller or larger as the individual contributors are
idle or industrious, as they waste or save, are nig-
gardly or generous. The bond is inevitable. You
may do nothing in the assertion of economic free-
dom which you do not believe it would be well for
all men in your circumstances likewise to do. The
Golden Rule is the plain utterance of human nature
wherever it speaks at its best. Call it, if you
please, God in Human Nature.

On the other hand, it is evident that political
freedom is only a small part of what a man needs.
He cannot even be poHtically free by the mere
gift of a ballot. Suppose the character of his
work and the length of his working hours keep
him ignorant. Suppose he is practically bound,
for example, by the burden of poverty, to remain
in one place, and cannot change his conditions for
more favorable ones. Or suppose his work is so
precarious that he never knows what it is to face
the responsibilities of being a permanent citizen
anywhere. Hundreds of thousands of legal voters
are living to-day on plantations, in factory towns,

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 9I

or in mines, whose votes are of no use to themselves
and are a standing menace to others. Too many-
voters express at the polls their ignorance and
their prejudices, rather than their intelligence.

Real freedom is the power to express skill,
judgment, reason, aspiration, ideals, humanity.
No man is a freeman who does only the bidding
of others, voices other men's opinions, is made the
dupe of the unscrupulous. No man is free who
is driven or hoodwinked or bribed. The spirit of
willing cooperation is essential to freedom.

It is evident that every man needs humane con-
ditions in the performance of his daily work, quite
as much as a free field in politics, in order that he
may enjoy full opportunity for the expression and
development of his intelligence, his character, and
the total of his life. Not the nature of a man's work,
but the temper with which he performs it, makes
him free or a bondsman. The slave works because
he must and chafes under his task. The merce-
nary works for his wages and aims to do as little as
he can. The freeman works because his work is
the expression of his character. It is his satisfac-
tion and his joy to express himself and pour out
his energy.

This satisfaction belongs normally to all the

92 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

nobler kinds of work. But there is no aristocratic
line of division by which we can separate noble
from menial work. If the mother's love lifts
household drudgery to the level of a fine art, if
the good farmer delights in making two blades of
grass grow where only one grew before, if an
Adam Bede can rejoice in making a chair or a
table to last for hundreds of years, every man's
task likewise ought to be translatable into the
terms of gladsome and willing democratic service.
It all goes to make mankind rich. It is pitiable
when men are forced by the length of the hours
of their work, or by squalid surroundings, to
become such drudges as to see only the task, or
the pay, and never its human significance. It is
pitiable when men are so placed that they cannot
catch sight of the ideals which alone give worth
to their lives.

It is conceded that "a man's a man," in the
realm of politics. It remains yet to be clearly
seen that " a man's a man " in the economic realm
as well. We can never treat men as cogs in a
wheel, any more than we can treat them as slaves.
It follows that every man ought to have some
voice in the determination of the conditions of his
work, as he has a voice in the management of the

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 93

State. He ought to be consulted. Too often men
treat other men as they would not treat horses,
and provoke their ill-will.

When, however, we say that men ought to have
consideration, this does not mean that every man's
opinion and voice are equal in value to every other
man's ; that the new man in the factory ought to
have an equal voice with the old workman; that
the man who is here to-day and in Montana to-
morrow ought to count equally with the foreman,
the manager, or the owner. In no conceivable
scheme of socialism ought one man's voice to be
held equal to every other man's. Take seaman-
ship, for example. The captains of ships must be
given, at least for the duration of the voyage, the
responsibility and the directing authority over the
lives of their crews. Men's votes are not equal on
board ship and ought not to be. Grant that the
ship is an extreme case, yet it illustrates the nature
of all industrial or economic enterprises.

Democracy is indeed essentially the spirit of
fairness. No just democrat ever wants more than
his share, or to be counted for more than his
opinion is worth. Democracy acts, or should act,
to bring men together in view of common interests
and duties, not to divide men into strata or classes.

94 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

All are, or ought to be, contributors to the com-
mon work. All also are members together of the
employing public for whose sake in the long run
work is carried on. The names of employer,
manager, foreman, captain, mayor, governor, presi-
dent, indicate only a larger responsibility and
heavier service.

Do you ask: How shall the thousands of the
vast industrial army have each a voice and a
share, as to the conditions of their work.** We
answer that this is being worked out to-day by
actual experiments. But only a general answer is
possible. You cannot fix the details.

No one can ever determine the exact wages or
salary that a man ought to receive. The more
valuable a man's work, the more difficult it
becomes to assess its value. As we have seen,
the best part of a man is not his own; it is
"bought with a price"; it is that with which he
is bound up inextricably with other men. It
depends upon inheritance and teaching. So with
the best part of the work of a man, of a good
judge, a president, or a skilled workman. So
with the weight or value of any man's opinion or
advice. You cannot measure it.

The real question is, in every case : Do you

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 95

wish to do men justice ? Do you wish to pay
others all that they deserve and no less ? Do you
wish to make provision for taking their advice,
getting their consent, and having the benefit of
their cooperation with you ? The good democrat
is he who seeks to do his best for the men whom
he deals with, buys from or sells to, employs or
assists. Give us the democratic spirit, and the
rest will take care of itself. ** Where there is a
will there is a way."

Thus it would seem to be just and reasonable to
provide representation upon the boards of direc-
tors of corporations, for the expression of the
judgment and the needs of the workmen. These
men have as real an interest as the stockholders
in the administration and in the success of their
company. To trust the workmen, to keep them
informed, to use the counsel of their representa-
tives, would seem not only to be humane treat-
ment, but also wise and tactful. It is a direct
appeal to men's intelligence and honor. May
we not predict the time when it will be as com-
mon to find at least one director to represent the
workmen in the directory of a company as it is
now unusual to see them represented at all ? The
effort made by certain corporations to enable their

96 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

workmen to own shares of stock is a movement
in this direction. There would be few strikes
where workmen were fairly recognized as having
a part in the control of the business.

It is absurd to suppose that any single method
of organization must prevail ; that every one, for
example, must join a labor union. There may be
various methods, all developing the same essential
spirit of friendliness and fraternity. There might
be the most ingenious and promising method, that
yet would be a failure in the absence of the spirit
of cooperation. Does any one outside of a luna-
tic asylum imagine that a Bellamy commonwealth,
inaugurated by plebiscite, and then run by such
men as Thomas C. Piatt, would make a happy
world.? Do you get good government in San
Domingo by calling it by the name of a republic ?

There is one quite fictitious difference between
men which the growth of democracy promises
at least to modify immensely. It is the considera-
tion which has commonly been given to certain
men on account of their heredity. That a man
comes of what is called ** noble blood," that his
ancestors have held offices and honors, that he has
inherited wealth — these reasons alone have been
enough to lift the man above the ranks of his

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 97

fellows. He has been thought to have a prescrip-
tive right to enjoy the same special consideration
as his ancestors held. It is true that we look for
much from the man who has received much. The
time is likely never to come when the honorable
name of one who has done admirable service in
the world will not give the children who bear it
a special advantage. It is an advantage to be
brought up with traditions of honor and useful-
ness. It is an advantage to any promising youth
to face high expectations on the part of the people
who know him. The son of a famous athlete or
the son of an illustrious senator has advantages
which no one grudges him.

All the more futile does mere heredity become
when it carries with it no useful quality. The
theory of the democracy is that each man shall
find his own level ; he shall have honor and value
set upon him for just what he is worth and no
more; he shall not presume to depend upon his
blood or his family one day after the virility of
the family stock has disappeared.

We have already in consistency with this prin-
ciple discarded in America all hereditary titles.
True, Americans sometimes run after them
abroad and make themselves ridiculous. We

98 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

have absolutely denied any man's right to hold
an inheritance of political office or power. This
sort of claim to lordship has so utterly gone out
of our republican traditions that we are hardly
able to imagine how strong it once was in the
world, how universally it was once admitted, how
even to-day our democratic brothers in England
continue to put up with it, how an Emperor Will-
iam holds it as almost an article of his religion.

We still, however, admit a strange survival of
this ancient claim to special hereditary power. It
is in the transmission of property. We have
aboHshed political dukedoms ; we are contemplat-
ing the erection of the most gigantic commercial
and industrial dukedoms that the world has ever
seen. We allow men to add farm to farm and own
miles of land and forests and mines. We allow
men whose wealth has notoriously come by the
manipulation of the stock markets, by the promo-
tion of colossal financial schemes, or by the con-
trol of some monopoly, to take over under their
names vast systems of continental railways. We
hear of the " Vanderbilt " roads or the " Gould "
roads ! A little group of men meeting in an office
or a bank in New York may, and do, levy taxes
upon the whole people of the United States.

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 99

Grant that this is right. Suppose that all the
captains of industry are disinterested and public-
spirited. Suppose that they never abuse their
power to take for themselves a dollar more than
they deserve. Try to believe them to be honest
trustees in behalf of the people in their manage-
ment of the regal properties of which they carry
the titles. Suppose that we would elect them, if
they had not elected themselves, to bear these
same responsibilities.

See what we do next. We not only recognize
the natural lord or '' captain of industry " who has
acquired dominion over lands, highways, public
resources, and the labor of men, but we actually
give him the right, by virtue or our inherited Old-
World system of laws of property, to transmit his
immense industrial dominion, touching the inter-
ests of millions of men, touching wealth which
they have all helped him to make, to sons and
grandsons who may be imbeciles, who at best are
no more likely to possess the skill, the wisdom,
the disinterestedness, the humanity, needful for
directing an industrial principality, than kings'
sons, the Georges, for example, were fit to
govern England. We live under the name of a
democracy, and yet we permit individuals to

lOO THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

direct by their wills what shall become of incomes
to be drawn from all the people hundreds of years
after our time !

Sir Henry Maine has shown in his " Ancient
Law," that when at Rome the right was first
allowed to individuals to make testamentary dis-
position of property, the power conferred on the
heir was always solemnly coupled with duties to
be performed and trusts to be discharged. We
practically allow heirs merely to enjoy property,
free of the duties and responsibilities which the
man had been obliged to exercise who amassed
the property.

We will not here say that this almost irrespon-
sible freedom in the bestowal of great properties,
thus constituting a hereditary power over the
lives and fortunes of a whole people, is necessarily
evil. Perhaps it is expedient. But we are bound
to say that it is strange and anomalous under the
rule of a democracy. We raise the question
whether justice or the interests of the people could
possibly sanction it. We hear the old cry, ** Have
we not a right to do as we please" with our own ? "
We may suggest that the Sultan of Turkey raised
that cry in vain over lands and incomes and au-
thority which have slipped out of his hands.

THE EXTENSION OF DEMOCRACY 1 01

The spirit of democracy affords guidance in the
whole realm of social relations. There is much that
it cannot do, and does not even profess directly
to do. The time will never come when there will
be no differences of personal attractiveness and
that indefinable quality which constitutes "charm,"
in any conceivable state of human society. You
cannot command intimacy, or love, in the highest
sense of the word ; for human nature has as
many different aspects and facets as a gem. The
main thing which we ask in a good or wholesome
society is that each individual shall be free to
grow and rise, free to make and choose and enjoy
acquaintances and friendships on the sole ground
of his worth of character. This general principle
of humanity transcends all distinctions of race and
color.

On the other hand, it may or may not prove to
be the verdict of experience that the closer rela-
tion of intermarriage is good between the people
of races whose traditions and inheritance are wide
apart. We know of no decisive evidence on this
problem. It is one of the most profound problems
that mankind is set to solve, and must be
reckoned with in all the discussions of future
human development. Grant the negative conclu-

I02 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

sion. Is there any humane reason why, with the
development of intelligence and character, the
people of any two races shall not travel together,
work and eat together, go to school and church
together, vote together, and respect one another
as persons ? There is but one answer to this
question, at least on the side of religion. To deny
the common humanity is simply a form of
atheism.

X

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS : THE SUFFRAGE

We have so far mainly considered the principles
of democracy. It becomes necessary to grapple
with certain great problems which already demand
all the wisdom and the statesmanship of the world.
They must at the same time be largely met by the
good sense and good temper of the multitudes
who now hold the ballot. The question is : Does
the democratic idea or spirit promise to solve the
practical issues now before us ? Will the idea of
democracy work ?

At the outset we are faced with the problem
of universal suffrage. There is a great deal of
almost cynical scepticism about it. Was it well
ever to have admitted this principle ? What shall
we do with it .»* Is it even necessary to the demo-
cratic spirit that every one shall vote ? If so, in
general, are there not terms and conditions which
may Hmit such a universal rule ?

We have shown that the democratic idea is that
every life shall find its expression and count for

103

104 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

what it is worth. We habitually trust men. We
wish also to educate men, and the appeal to their
judgment is a method of education. The ballot
indeed is only a piece of machinery. It is a
method for the expression of men's manhood. Its
use is not in itself a natural right. The natural
right is that a man shall express himself in some
valid form touching the interests which affect him.
As a mere matter of good policy, it would seem
well to give the man utterance and not to suppress
his manhood. You would make even an animal
content if you could.

Grant what you please, then, as to the merely
mechanical nature of the ballot ; grant that it may
not be an altogether adequate expression of human
will ; still it is a valid expression, as far as it goes.
The presumption is that every man ought to have
it; and I use "man" in that broader sense which
includes women, too. Reason should be shown
why it is given to some and withheld from others.

For example, we withhold the suffrage from
minors. But I am not aware that minors make
any complaint of injustice. They are all treated
alike. They have the expectation of the common
franchise before them, as soon as they are mature
enough for it.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE 105

May we not also sometimes make an educa-
tional, or even a property qualification for the
suffrage ? We can easily conceive that an educa-
tional standard, as much as the ability to read and
write, might be made to seem quite fair to the
disfranchised themselves, provided help and hope
were offered to enable them in due time to en-
franchise themselves. No sound democrat, how-
ever, could consistently draw any line, which
would admit ignorant whites and exclude the same
class of black or brown or yellow men.

A reasonable limit of time of residence might
also be made to seem quite just to the very men
whom it would exclude. Does any one claim that
he deserves to have a voice in the affairs of a city
in which he has no permanent residence, nor any
stake in its affairs ? We have undoubtedly been
slovenly in granting the municipal franchise to
those who could never have fairly complained of
injustice if they had been required in some way to
show that they have something more than the in-
terest of birds of passage in the welfare of the city.

A property qualification always threatens to
divide the rich and the poor, a mischievous divi-
sion in a democracy. As has often been pointed
out, it would work to disenfranchise Jesus, Epicte-

I06 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

tus and Paul. Nevertheless there is a form in
which money may fairly have a place, especially
in the terms of municipal suffrage. Why should
any man claim to hold the right to vote and expend
money, who pays nothing whatever for the com-
mon burdens ? I believe that every just man,
however poor, would prefer, at least till old age,
to be required to pay something, if no more than
a reasonable poll-tax, as a qualification for voting
on all matters which touch money and property.
We do no kindness to men in a democracy in ex-
empting them from the common burdens, while
we allow them the common privileges. In fact, it
seems fair, and therefore democratic, to grant as
much as a municipal franchise to the large class
who have actual interests in some other town from
that in which they reside. Why should not the
man who pays taxes in New York City and lives
in Jersey City have a vote in both towns ? Why
should a man be taxed without any representation
in the town where he owns a dona fide summer
residence 1

Is there any sufficient reason why womankind
should be excluded from polling their full influ-
ence as well as the men } No. Women are ex-
cluded from the suffrage because in barbarous

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS : THE SUFFRAGE 107

society, out of which we have emerged, the women
were thought to be inferior to the men. The
tradition still binds us. We hardly reckon how
immensely all the functions of government have
changed their character from mere masculine to
universal and human interests. Government is
not a mere fighting machine, neither, as we have
seen, is voting a tug-of-war between angry fac-
tions. Politics is properly the friendly considera-
tion of all manner of common interests, in which
the women are as much concerned as the men.
Why should the state then keep up the Old- World
barrier of political inferiority against such mothers,
sisters, and wives as are in the homes of Iowa
or Massachusetts ? No one can give any reason,
except such arguments of conservative timidity
as have generally withstood every step in the
advancement of mankind.

This is not to raise the somewhat academic
question of the equality of the sexes. It is to
affirm that the modern and democratic method,
not to say the religious or civilized method, is to
treat and respect all people as persons. We re-
gard women, therefore, as persons. We look for
intelligence, character, and public spirit among
them. We tend to find what we expect. This

I08 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

treatment is wholesome and educative for men
and women alike. Does any one seriously fore-
bode evil results from it? There is surely nothing
unwomanly if our wives and sisters have an
opinion of their own on the public housekeep-
ing and express it by a ballot.

So much for certain general considerations in
favor of the democratic rule of universal suffrage.
Whatever exceptional conditions may restrict this
rule, such as a qualification of age, of actual resi-
dence, of education, or of moral fitness, — they
must evidently be so framed as to seem quite
fair to those who may temporarily be deprived
of the suffrage. The conditions should also be
such as distinctly to encourage those who do not
yet possess the suffrage, to qualify for it. Well-
informed negroes tell us that their people have
no objection to such suffrage laws as the state
of Massachusetts has passed.

I do not forget that the use of the suffrage is
no mere matter of theory, but a serious practical
problem. We are constantly reminded that there
are considerable populations in the world to whom
all the traditions and usages of popular govern-
ment are new and unfamiliar. Such are many
of the immigrants to our shores from eastern and

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE 109

southern Europe. Such are most of the people of
Cuba, Porto Rico, and Hawaii. These are people,
we are told, who are not politically men yet,
but children, that is, minors. Some are asking
whether these should not be permanently treated
as minors.** This is the question which men are
actively raising as regards negro suffrage in the
South.

To ask this question is to assume that a certain
gifted class, namely, ourselves, have the right
to grant or to withhold the suffrage from others
outside our privileged order. This is to say that
the world is properly divided between human be-
ings who are men, and others who are not yet
men, between those who are fit both to govern
themxselves and to govern others, and the rest of
mankind who are unfit even to govern themselves,
and who need, therefore, to be taken in hand by
their betters. This was precisely the contention
upon which slavery was justified. This is the
aristocratic theory of society.

Inasmuch as many hold this theory, let us
appeal to the facts, and try to discover, if we may,
on what ground men may be divided into two
classes practically so diverse that one should live
in tutelage to the other. The truth is, there is no

no THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

such ground of division. The world is made up
of men of all grades of physical, intellectual, and
moral power. They differ in genius, in character,
in aptitude to learn, but their differences imper-
ceptibly shade into each other. These differences
are in every family group, and in every school.
Find among the graduates of the greatest uni-
versity the perfect, mature, and normal man, who
marks one hundred per cent in every human value,
sound in body, with thorough common sense,
brave, patient, just, temperate, benevolent, con-
stant also, on whose faithfulness and truth you can
count every hour of the day, — the man fit and
worthy to lead, and we shall find for every such
university graduate ten men of the same educated
class, more or less immature and imperfect, lack-
ing in sound sense, wanting in virtue, in self-
discipline, in good temper, in patience and man-
liness, upon whose constancy no one can certainly
count. Such men too often go through life im-
mature, unwise, inconstant. Some of them are
never able to earn their living in any serviceable
way. Are those not men ?

Let us be modest together. Let us grant that
if any of us wish to be counted as men, we had
better treat others also as men. For, the more

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE III

we expect manly conduct of them, the better they
tend to behave. Or, if we all are only children,
let us be as patient and considerate toward others'
shortcomings as we like to have them patient
toward us. H^re is a basjs of fact. The idea of
democracy rises out of this basis.

The truth is that all races and peoples, like the
individuals composing them, are still more or
less in the childish, or, as we say, the uncivilized
state. No one of them has yet learned the splen-
did art of self-government. How far away is
America from this goal ! Evidently no group or
set or class of favored people in America is consti-
tuted of grown and quite mature and civilized
men. There is no dividing line that anywhere
corresponds to the aristocratic theory of the *' bet-
ter" people, fit to rule, and the childish people
unfit to rule. The world has tried the aristo-
cratic idea for thousands of years and worked out
a demonstration that in folly, in inhumanity, in
tyrannous spirit, in avarice and selfishness, in
intellectual and moral childishness, the rule of the
"better" people has been on the whole as con-
spicuous a disappointment, at least, as anything to
be feared under the name of democracy.

The success of democracy fortunately does not

112 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

depend upon a high degree of intellectual educa-
tion, limited to the few, so much as upon a con-
stant appeal to the sense of justice. This native
sense of right and justice awakens very early in
human life. It is in children, who show them-
selves reasonable whenever you appeal to their
love of fair play. The same sense is in childish
people, who always have their codes of conduct,
and do really govern themselves in all primitive
communities, long before any imperial govern-
ment ever undertakes to rule over them. The
conscience of the well-to-do class is often sophisti-
cated; their selfishness, while subtle, is apt to be
specially unscrupulous. It is a fact of frequent
observation that the plain, average, unsophisti-
cated, and even childish man is at least quite as
open to the appeal of justice as his better edu-
cated neighbor.

The issues of government are likely to turn
upon questions of right. There is no evidence
to show that there is any superior class with
whom such issues can be more safely trusted
than with the very people whom the few too
often look down upon as inferior and childish.
On any simple question of justice you may
always appeal with confidence to the plain peo-

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE II3

pie, even to the ignorant. Neither is there evi-
dence to show that childish people are any more
ready than the ** better people" to put themselves
into the hands of unscrupulous leaders. Witness
the contentment of the respectable people of the
state of Pennsylvania, under the sway of the late
Matthew S. Quay, most unscrupulous of political
despots. Witness, per contra^ the repeated revolt
of the East Side of New York against a rotten
Tammany.

True, there are complicated and confusing prob-
lems in modern government. Childish people will
go wrong, we are told. But these problems are
confusing, because the people of Hght and lead-
ing go wrong, are divided among themselves, and
confuse the issue with their helplessness. Witness
the silver question, whereon the most eminent
men lost their way. Witness the eternal question
of the tariff, regarding which the business men
mostly seem to vote, not from principle, but
from fancied property interests. Would any
childish people do worse than the propertied
classes of Great Britain did, up to the middle
of the nineteenth century, in restraint of trade ?

Besides justice, there is another point wherein
children and childish people are peculiarly sus-

114 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ceptible to the modern idea of democratic gov-
ernment. We have seen that democracy means
cooperation. The idea is, "all for each and
each for all." It was the motto of the Three
Guardsmen of Dumas, — and it is the essential
of socialism. Children understand this just as
well as older people do. They are even more
willing to carry the idea out. You can per-
suade them both to play together and to work
together. The difficulty is in keeping them to-
gether in sustained effort. Is not this difficulty
quite as great with the well-to-do class.'' It is
a difficulty which grows with the growth of self-
ishness, but when grown or civilized people are
selfish, their selfishness is more menacing and
unmanageable than is the selfishness of the
childish.

We are reminded of the fearful waste and
corruption of the ** carpet-bag " governments in
the Southern states after the Civil War. The
very name of those governments implies one
source of the mischief. Northern white men
had seized on an anomalous situation for pur-
poses of selfish greed. " The ruling class " at
the South let slip a splendid opportunity; or
rather, they were not wise or good enough to

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE II5

see it. All their interests, material and moral,
lay with the enfranchised blacks. The two races
were there to work out civilization together, not
in rivalry or in enmity, but cooperatively. Every
white man who professed the Christian religion
was bound in honor to give a helping hand to
his black brother, to be his friend and to remain
his friend. The negroes by all accounts were
ready, and are now ready, as all childish people
usually are, to respond to the trust and the
friendliness of a stronger people. The South
was not civilized enough for this, nor was the
North. Evidently what is needed in solving
the vast problem, caused by bringing negro
slaves to the United States, is the temper or
spirit of cooperation which alone can bind men
in a political society. This does not mean the
fear of the negro, but trust, respect, and educa-
tion. The same spirit which makes a harmo-
nious school out of young Poles, Italians, and
Yankees will make a harmonious nation out of
the same heterogeneous elements.

I am not denying that the presence of a multi-
tude of ignorant and childish people is a serious
peril. Children are irresponsible and fickle. The
one cure, however, for irresponsible people is to

Il6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

put responsibility upon them. Is there anything
else that makes men out of children ? Grant that
this method is slow and costly. Manhood and
civilization are worth whatever they cost.

We may here concede, without prejudice to our
principle, that the assumption of the suffrage by
any citizen for the first time might well be made to
seem, what it really is, a solemn and important
business. So far from giving dignity to this step
upward in manhood, we have almost gone to the
opposite extreme in cheapening it. I have already
suggested that no able-bodied person ought to ex-
ercise the suffrage as a mere personal right. It
is a public or social duty. Few young Americans
seem yet to recognize this. Few see that every
public function is a trust. Many have never been
told wherein the giving or receiving of bribes is as
bad as treason.

The question for every voter is. What can I do
for the social good ? Young men can be made to
see this ; the youngest members of labor unions
often actually see it. The voter is pledged to
contribute service, time, and money, as well as to
vote. It is bad democracy that lets him evade
this side of his duty. Is it not worth suggesting
whether there ought not to be in America some

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE II7

fitting and dignified ceremony whereby in every
municipality all new or young voters shall be in-
ducted formally into the ranks of citizenship ?
" The Young Voters' Festival," recently tried in the
city of Boston, may serve as a hint of a method
which needs only to be invested with the sanction
of law and usage in order to solemnize, as if with
the force of an oath, the assumption of the right
to help rule the nation.

The question of the suffrage for childish people
is somewhat modified by the fact that democracy
is in process of development in the world. We
watch a historical movement still in progress, by
which government is actually passing in one coun-
try after another from the hands of the few or of a
part to the hands of the people. Thus, the great
reform measures which marked the legislation of
the last century in Great Britain were so many
steps through which the holders of a restricted
suffrage were challenged to share their duties and
their privileges with the hitherto unenfranchised.

In the course of such a progressive and evolu-
tionary movement, may it not be fairly permitted
to the present holders of political power to proceed
cautiously and step by step, and thus to guard the
precious ark of government from the rude jolting of

Il8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

those who might lay hasty hands upon it ? This
question is asked by those who take counsel of
their suspicions and fears more than by those who
respect men's manhood. The answer is on the
lines of what we do in the case of our own youth.
We withhold the suffrage from them no longer
than they would generally themselves admit the
reasonableness of our delay. They are made cer-
tain that they will presently have the franchise on
fair terms. The same general rule seems to hold
good everywhere. Let us make fair and reason-
able terms, such as, for example, the abihty to
read ; let us interpose no hopeless delays ; let us
make no conditions which will raise issues, or in-
volve the conflict of will with the new people about
to enter for the first time upon the duties of a
civilized government.

It cannot be too clearly seen that the relation
between a class, or a people, who have the suf-
frage to give, and another class or people who are
disfranchised, is anomalous and fraught with
peril. It is usually the accompaniment of con-
quest or some kind of barbarism. It can be al-
lowed to continue, only as disease is borne with,
for the shortest possible time. At best it is analo-
gous to the situation of a man who has inherited

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE SUFFRAGE II9

slaves. The worst thing that could happen to him
would be to become content with the institution of
slavery. Equally fatal is it to the class or the
people who make excuses for contentedly holding
wardship, or lordship, or any kind of sovereignty
over others.

BR

or THC

^NIVS:RSfTY
or

XI

THE LAWS : THE LEGITIMATE USE OF FORCE

The answer to the question, where the laws
come from, is not so difficult as it once seemed.
Men used to say that the laws of a state were
supernatural ; they had been given to some chosen
lawgiver, Manu or Moses, from heaven. They
could not be altered or repealed, but only inter-
preted.

We know now that human law, like every-
thing else, is in a constant process of change
and growth. We see new laws as they come
into being and we even make them. They come
out of human needs and exigencies. They begin
in the tentative or experimental stage, and they
struggle for their existence, as other human in-
stitutions have to struggle to approve themselves
by use. The laws touching the alcoholic drinks
are an example of this tentative process through
which laws have to run the gantlet of experience.

Examine the legal code of any modern people,
and it will divide itself at once into two classes of

1 20

THE LAWS 121

laws. One part consists of those rules of conduct
and social adjustment which have become solidi-
fied by the usage of generations. The history of
even this solid part of the legal system would
reveal curious changes of growth and decay.
The common laws for the protection of property,
for instance, among English-speaking people will
prove to have had a development in the direc-
tion of extreme individualism. The history of
penalties will show strange fluctuations, at one
time toward extravagant severity, and again, later,
toward leniency and humanity.

Behind the changing details of legal provisions
certain general principles characterize the common
laws. The more important they are, the harder
they are to define. Thus, there is always an
idea of justice which all laws seek more or less
crudely to embody, but which no law can ever de-
scribe or satisfy. There is an idea of humanity to
be traced even in the customs and legislation of
barbarous peoples who were daily violating their
humanity and oppressing or killing one another.
The more advanced peoples, like the Greeks and the
Hebrews, tried to formulate the principle of human-
ity into solemn rules for the protection of strangers.
To do injury to a guest was like the violation of

122 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

an oath. The development of commerce always
has tended to demand appropriate legislation in
behalf of foreigners.

So much for a class of laws which have every-
where come to express the habitual experience of
mankind in view of certain fundamental princi-
ples : " Thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not kill ;
thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not
break a pledge or promise," — such laws as these,
in various forms of application, survive like primi-
tive rock. Men everywhere agree in general to
the universal rules without which society obvi-
ously could not exist. If these laws did not ex-
actly come down from heaven, they are in the
nature of man. They may need new adaptations
at times to new circumstances, but even those who
take the most extreme anarchistic ground against
government have no quarrel with the principles
that such laws express. In fact, they often claim
that men generally tend without constraint to keep
these laws of their own volition.

The second class of laws are those which soci-
ety evidently makes for itself, or at least suf-
fers to be made through its existing authorities,
whether through the majority of a legislature or
by the decree of an autocratic power. Many of

THE LAWS 123

these laws are simply for convenience and may
or may not prove to be serviceable. Many of the
new laws, like those requiring vaccination, are in
the name of the public health, or they are for the
protection of children. They limit, for example,
the hours of work in certain employments. Such
laws frankly interfere with individual liberty, but
they do this in the name of the welfare of the so-
cial body. Other new laws are the expression of
new social or moral ideals. Thus the prohibition
of gambling is an attempt to urge a new standard
of conduct upon men whose forefathers gam-
bled without a twinge of conscience. New laws
against offensive advertisements in public places
represent a growing artistic sense, which pro-
tests against being compelled to submit to ugly
sights at the instance of a few ruthless and greedy
individuals.

The laws that aim at convenience, at the im-
provement of the public health, at more enlight-
ened standards of moral conduct, at the general
betterment of human conditions, are all experi-
mental. They may be mistaken ; they may prove
oppressive ; they may have to be modified or
annulled. They are often merely methods, and
faulty methods at that, to carry out some general

124 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

public purpose. The tax laws, for example, the
internal revenue laws, with their extravagant pun-
ishments, and the customs regulations, with their
petty persecutions of travellers, necessitated by
the system of protection, may prove to be sub-
versive of real justice.

What do we mean when we speak of the ** sanc-
tity of law " ? The idea has perhaps come down
to us from priestly legislators, seeking to mag-
nify their office. There is a real sanctity which
attaches to the unalterable principles at the
foundation of society. We instinctively reverence
justice, truth, honor, liberty, humanity, especially
when incarnated in the deeds and lives of true
men who have been ready to die for those ideas.
We rightly call these things divine. But the
sense of sacredness is felt rather toward our
ideals of justice and goodness than toward the
legislation which imperfectly expresses these
ideals.

As for ordinary laws, and especially the laws
which are fresh from the factory and are under
trial, laws which may be declared constitutional
by one court and set aside by the bare majority
of another, laws which may have been procured
by purchase or favor, — it is an abuse of language

THE LAWS 125

to declare such laws sacred. We will regard the
human law, we may be bound to obey it, we will
give it trial, we will respect if we can the men
who enacted it, but we hold our reverence only
for those things which endure through all time.
We can get along without an undue sense of the
sacredness of laws of our own manufacture, but we
cannot get on without respect for justice.

It follows that fair, patient, and intelligent criti-
cism of the laws is always in order in a democracy.
This is because we want the best possible laws ; it
is because laws are for men and not men for the
sake of keeping the law. . Men may deplore the
decline of the conventional sense of the sanctity of
law, but this artificial feeling, suitable to absolutism
and autocracy, is giving way to something more
real and wholesome, namely, the good will essen-
tial to a democracy. For it is the part of the
people, governing themselves, to seek, to find, and
to do justice together. All legitimate law is an
effort to this end. Under the democratic spirit we
reverence principles and we reverence manhood,
but we use laws as a means ; we watch their action
to see how they work ; we hold them or obey them,
subject to amendment or abrogation ; we never
expect too much from them ; we never dream that

126 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

they can do perfect justice. We are therefore
cautious of subjecting ourselves to too many of
them. There is a simple practical test to which
all such rules are finally subject. So far as they
prove to serve human welfare, all rational people
become quite willing to adjust themselves to their
working and to find freedom under them. Indeed,
no rule that we voluntarily accept really represses
our liberty.

It has commonly been held and often reiterated,
that all government and social order ultimately
rest upon the appeal to brute force. Behind all
laws, votes, public opinion, decrees, and plebiscites,
it is said, stand the policeman, the sheriff, the jail,
and the soldier. Grant if you please that nine out
of ten men would obey the laws, pay their debts,
" keep to the right," and respect each other with-
out the sight of a constable, yet there is the tenth
man, who is still more or less of a child, a savage,
or an anarchist, unfortunate in his education,
unstable in character, self-willed, a menace to him-
self or to others. What if thousands of such
swarm to our shores and fill our towns } Will you
preach, in view of their presence and the obvious
facts of crime and drunkenness, any Hteral or Tol-
stoian doctrine of non-resistance to evil ?

THE LAWS 127

The truth is, the spirit of democracy is in no
way inconsistent with the use of needful force
or compulsion. Neither does it make us over-
timid of pain and suffering. It only forbids
the use of hate or revenge. Never forget, it
urges, that the man is a man. Never treat him
with enmity. Always maintain your good will
toward him. Is there any man whose welfare you,
as a good democrat, do not desire .•* The spirit of
democracy does not deny the facts of the world,
the childishness, the anarchism, the brutality, the
insanity, — but it deals with facts, as the good
engineer deals with his problems of various mate-
rials and their resistance, without ever forgetting
the main end of his work.

Mark the difference between the old and the
new thought touching the use of force. Whereas
once man treated the brutal or the childish man as
an outlaw, hated him, and sought to get rid of
him, we treat him, however he behaves, as poten-
tially a man. Thus, for example, the officer finds
a crazy man abusing a child. Do you suppose
Tolstof himself would stand by and see the child
murdered ? Pity the crazy or drunken or passion-
ate man if you will ; for very pity's sake you will
save the man from doing both himself and the

128 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

innocent child irreparable wrong. You knock the
man senseless if necessary. This is what you
would wish another to do to you, if the circum-
stances were reversed, if you had lost your control
and had become a brute.

The case is analogous to that of the surgeon
who risks the child's life in an operation to save
it. Pain and the risk of death are a part of the
operation. You are not denied action in the use
of your strength or your skill; you are denied
hate in the action, or revenge after it. On the
contrary, you proceed, or ought to proceed pres-
ently, to cure the ill-doer. You restrain him if
need be, as you would lock up an ugly dog. You
give him the regimen of the hospital, as long as
he needs it, — for life, if occasion requires. You
appeal from ** Alexander drunk to Alexander sober"
— from the will of the sick man, or the wild man,
whose manhood is not yet achieved, to the will of
the well man or the civilized man, whom you hope
to see. Thus we frankly admit into our present
democracy bolts and locks, the court and the con-
stable. We admit them as we admit the operating
table and the surgeon's instruments. There are
sicknesses and wounds in the world ; there are
also animal men, our " contemporary ancestors,"

THE LAWS

129

as President Frost of Berea College has called
them.

We see from time to time, in the more backward
parts of the United States, in the form of mob
violence and lynching, a fearful upheaval of the
wild forces of primitive barbarism. Does any
one suppose that society should quietly tolerate
mad outbursts of cruelty ? One might as well urge
that we should let the maniac go unrestrained for
fear of hurting him. It can never be kindness
or reason to suffer a mob to run wild. This is
not to befriend men, but to help make beasts of
them. Order, even though backed up by cold steel,
like the surgeon's lancet, may be wholesome, cura-
tive, and humane in the face of a surging mass
of craziness. The one rule is that the spirit of
order and mercy shall always direct the tools and
the minds of the restraining forces. Let those
who deplore mob violence see to it that the blame
for inciting it is never traced back to their own
angry words or harsh temper J

XII

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME

The growing spirit of democracy is working a
radical change in the feeling of society toward
the so-called "criminal class." It is also slowly
transforming the character of penal legislation.
The keynote of the old method in the treatment of
crime was retaliation or revenge. Its spirit was
hatred and contempt, as of a superior toward an in-
ferior class. The keynote of the new method will
be sympathy.

Crime is a species of social disease. While
technically it is violation of law, more strictly any
act or conduct that is discovered to 5e hurtful
to society must be accounted crime. Any nefa-
rious business, like the slave trade, is a crime, even
before society has found out its character. Any
kind of monopoly, which bleeds one part of the
people for the enrichment of others, is a crime.

Crime is essentially the will to get more than
one's share, to do less than one's part, to do one's
own pleasure at the expense of others, to outrage,

130

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 131

insult, or harm another. Crime is injustice, self-
ishness, wilfulness, expressing itself in hurtful
action.

The criminal is not another species of man dif-
ferent from the rest of his kind, but the same man,
only less fortunate than his fellows in his birth
and education, in his conditions, in the strength of
his will, or in the force of special temptations.
He is very apt to be dull and backward, or defec-
tive in brain power, or lacking in moral sense, per-
haps the child of a drunkard or of neurasthenic
parents.

Or, again, the criminal comes on occasion from
the educated and favored class, a defaulting treas-
urer, a dishonest member of Congress, a college
professor, a magnate in business. Evidently no
aristocratic line separates the good from the bad,
but the most favored of men become dangerous to
themselves and to others as soon as they leave
the way of justice and good will.

There are special reasons for a considerable
prevalence of crime in the United States. A new
country, with a vast and thinly settled area and
numerous frontier and mining settlements, attracts
to its shores the boldest as well as the most igno-
rant of immigrants. We have the task of assimilat-

132 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ing into peaceful habits of cooperation the most
diverse races and colors. Cheap facilities of travel
daily carry men away from the associations of their
childhood into strange environment for which they
have had no moral training. While old laws tend
to lose their sanction, the legislatures of forty-five
states are constantly creating new laws and new
crimes, which supreme courts allow or set aside,
perhaps by a bare majority vote! How can one
reverence a law which constitutes as crime in one
state what is no crime in the next state ? How
can a simple-minded Kentucky mountaineer, or a
farmer on the Canadian border, be expected to set
revenue laws on the same level with the Ten Com-
mandments ? Everywhere the people are dis-
covering that the laws, so far from being handed
down from heaven, are man-made and "judge-
made " — the work of human creation. What if
they surmise that certain laws are not really " of
the people, by the people, and for the people " !

There are three main ends to be secured in the
treatment of crime. The first is the protection
of society. We tend largely to overestimate the
value of the security afforded by our machinery
of judicial processes and penalties. A recent esti-
mate presented before the national prison associa-

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 1 33

tion reports as many as a quarter of a million
people in the United States who ia some degree
support themselves by crime. Doubtless a larger
number live close to the danger line of criminality.
Evidently, then, the larger part of the ** criminal
class " are always at large. The occasional arrest
or conviction of a murderer does not greatly reduce
the number of men of homicidal proclivities.

The treatment of crime should obviously follow
the analogy of methods of modern medicine.
Modern medicine is the art, not merely of combat-
ing disease after it appears, but of going back to
its causes and preventing it. The only security
against crime is likewise in forestalling it. It pro-
ceeds, as disease does, from bad and abnormal
social and economic conditions. The problem of
crime is the problem of imperfect democracy. It
is the survival of animal and barbarous habits, of
ignorance and prejudice. It thrives in the dark.
It rises like the death rate, whenever the spirit of
war is abroad in the world. It gives way be-
fore enlightenment, the growth of humanity, the
prevalence of more just and tolerable conditions
of Hfe, comfortable homes, well-lighted streets.
It cannot bear publicity. Schoolhouses and
churches, social clubs and benefit orders, are so

134 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

many safeguards against crime. Whatever so-
cializes men and binds them together more closely
prevents crime. If democracy is the spirit of
cooperation, the more democratic people become
the less is crime possible. In normal social rela-
tions no man is easily tempted to crime.

In the cautious report of the Committee of Fifty
on the liquor problem, it appears that intemper-
ance is at least one of the causes of crime in al-
most fifty per cent of the cases investigated in
behalf of the committee. Society stretches lines
of saloons in almost every town to tempt men
through their social instincts as well as their ap-
petites, and then builds jails to confine its crimi-
nals. Society, scared by the natural results of its
conduct, presently passes hasty laws to close its
saloons, without making the slightest provision to
satisfy those healthy social instincts to which the
saloon caters. How can we expect immunity from
social disease as long as we look with comparative
indifference upon the herding of multitudes of
human beings in unhygienic homes and without
uplifting forms of recreation and social enjoy-
ment.? There can be no security from crime
while children are ill born and ill brought up,
stunted and starved in body and soul.

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 1 35

The second aim in the treatment of crime is to
warn and deter individuals of weak morals and will
from the commission of crime. This for the sake
of the individual and also for the security of so-
ciety. The trouble with the old system of criminal
jurisprudence was its utter want of sympathy. The
treatment prescribed by the law was often such as
to challenge the cunning, the daring, and the wilful-
ness of the wrong-doer. There has never been so
much crime as when society has tried the experi-
ment of publishing savage warnings to frighten
men from the commission of crime. It is human
nature to be both tempted and provoked by a
threat, especially the threat of an alien power, of
a superior class, or of an unsympathetic majority.

We do not deny the wholesome use of warn-
ings and deterrents. No thief or highwayman
asks society to stand by passive, and see murders
committed, trains derailed, or houses robbed and
burned. The trouble with our present penalties
and warnings is that too many men do not yet
recognize the nature of the legislation of their own
country. They think the laws are made by others
and against themselves. Or they suspect, some-
times with a ray of justice, that the laws are
intended to protect those who have got more

136 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

than rightly belongs to them. The sight of a
single miUionaire swindler takes the sting out of
the penalty of the petty rogue brought into the
police court.

Effective penalties are not mere arbitrary rules.
They are rather the natural results of unsocial
acts. They are such as the ordinary conscience
and judgment tend instinctively to approve. Thus,
it is obvious that the man who cannot keep the
peace, or curb his passions when at large, must
be restrained, as we would restrain a savage dog.
But do not call this " punishment." For punish-
ment is a dangerous word in a democracy, imply-
ing a subtle assumption of superiority in those who
inflict it over those who suffer it. It bars sympa-
thy ; it carries the idea of retaliation.

The most effective of all natural deterrents
against crime probably lies in men's sense of
shame and social disgrace. Few men are so in-
sensitive as to bear up against the firm and serious
disapprobation of their fellows and especially the
disapproval of their own social group. The worst
effect of herding wrong-doers together in jails, and
crowding them down into an outcast class by them-
selves in the dark alleys of great towns, is that
they are enabled to give one another social coun-

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 1 37

tenance and to set up heroes of villany. In a
truly democratic society, where no submerged
tenth suffered the pressure of alienation from their
more fortunate neighbors, no evil-doer could think
himself a hero.

The question of the use of the death penalty
meets us here. We are not prepared to deny that
society in the necessary use of force, to restrain
the animalism or the insanity of eccentric individ-
uals, might go so far as to take life. The best
men and women are always willing to give their
lives for the sake of defending or purchasing
human welfare. To say nothing of war, in the
experiments of science, in discovery and explora-
tion, in a thousand factories and mines, men die
daily. If the good must die, on occasion, that the
community may live, surely the criminal must die,
if this is shown to be for the good of society. The
burden of the proof, however, is upon those who
would compel us to maintain an obsolescent and
barbarous custom of punishment. Does the death
penalty effectually warn brutal men and protect
society from revolting crimes ? There is no proof
whatever of this. On the contrary, the mitigation
of penalties has generally coincided with the dimi-
nution of crime. Society to-day is as safe, other

138 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

things being equal, in the states that have abol-
ished the death penalty as in those states that
retain it. In fact homicide is not the basest form
of crime. It is probable that most men who have
been convicted of murder would never, even if
they were at large, commit murder again. As
long as professing Christians are quite willing
to contemplate war, that is, killing men on a large
scale, it will be impossible to impose a serious re-
spect for human life by the mere arbitrary device
of the death penalty. Indeed, in a world that
clings to the barbarity of war, there must always
remain peculiar risks of life and property.

The real issue as regards the use of deterrent
penalties is not a question of sentiment, but of
humanity. How can you bring to bear upon weak
human nature the most effective and persuasive
influences to safeguard the public and to stiffen
the individual will.? Severity may be kindness.
But it is essential that the treatment shall carry
the touch of sympathy and not mere impatience,
disgust, and hate. A democracy can never afford
to forget that its wrong-doers at the worst are
men, to be treated and persuaded as men.

It follows that the third and chief aim to be
pursued in treating crime is to cure and save the

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 1 39

man who is found guilty. If you save the man and
make him a good citizen, you have taken the most
effective means of protecting the public. The
worst count against our present criminal system
is that it rarely leaves the man treated by it any
better. Society takes on itself a fearful responsi-
bility, if for its own protection it locks men away
from their fellows and then returns them worse
in every way than they were before. There is
reason to believe that even the most progressive
states are still doing this mischievous work on a
vast scale with scores of thousands of men and
women.

I have referred in another connection to cer-
tain illustrious object-lessons showing what effec-
tive curative influences may be brought to bear
upon the most unfortunate men and women to
change them into decent citizens. The states of
New York and Massachusetts, for example, have
established reformatories which are working out
the most difficult of social problems with marked
results. It has been sufficiently demonstrated that,
with time and money enough, wise direction, and
especially the democratic and friendly spirit, moral
recovery can hardly in the worst cases be called
impossible. In other words, there is demanded

140 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

for the cure of the criminal something of the
same hospital treatment, firm, kindly, intelligent,
as the state and the city now give to the diseased
and the insane.

The hopefulness of the curative method is
specially pertinent to the care of young offenders.
They are usually the victims of evil social circum-
stances. They are probably not worse in nature
than other boys and girls. Most interesting and
encouraging experiments have been made, as, for
example, at Denver, Colorado, through the estab-
lishment of a children's court presided over by a
judge who knows how to handle boys. A system
of probation is also on trial in Massachusetts and
other states, through which a friendly officer fol-
lows the course of the youthful probationer and
seeks to keep him out of danger. The states are
only beginning to understand that the use of cura-
tive influences is as sure in the realm of conduct,
upon weak or wayward youth, as similar agencies
are effective in the healing of weak throats and
lungs.

The curative treatment of crime is likely to be
also the most deterrent to the criminal. We have
treated the robber and the burglar as if he were a
dangerous enemy of the state. We have adver-

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 141

tised his doings as important. We have even
fostered his self-esteem and vanity. We pro-
pose now to treat him as if he were sick, — not
stronger than other men, but weaker, a subject of
pity, needing the care of tRe hospital. We should
give him the least publicity possible. We propose
to keep him in confinement, not till he has worked
off the arbitrary sentence of a court, but till he is
ready to earn his honest living like ordinavy men.
The idler, the shirk, the tramp, the criminal, will
be intimidated by nothing so much as by this
rigorous but kindly system of overcoming his wil-
fulness and his conceit by the development of his
own manhood.

Moreover, as soon as society undertakes to treat
a man for his own good and not as the object of
public enmity, the best self in the man is instinc-
tively compelled to consent to the treatment. The
patient does not wish to go to the hospital, but he
knows that he ought to go. He does not wish to
live on gruel or to take exercise, but his intelli-
gence submits to the decree of the doctor, where
the same man would resent the command of the
jailer.

Certain important considerations at once follow.
It is evident that wrong-doers ought to be classified

142 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

and distinguished from one another, and given
treatment according to their varying character.
We now imprison men for whose restraint there
is no need and whom the jail hurts ; and we lock
up and presently discharge thousands of hardened
and erratic characters who distinctly ought to be
kept out of the way of doing mischief. We could
probably afford to close a large number of our
jails, if we would use the rest, precisely as we use
our insane asylums, as places of detention with
various grades of severity for patients who cannot
be trusted at large.

Our methods of treatment ought to be fitted to
the nature of the offence. We are apt to confound
crimes against property with crimes against per-
sons. It has been a salutary reform in the law
that creditors can no longer imprison their debtors.
The community is rendered hardly safer by send-
ing a tiny proportion of its cheats and defaulters
behind prison bars. The natural punishment of a
cheat is not imprisonment, as if he were a danger-
ous man, but simply to publish him as unworthy
of credit. There is no need to send the dishonest
grocer, or milkman, or liquor dealer to jail. Mark
his shop or his wagon with the established fact
that he cheats or adulterates his goods. Keep the

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 143

mark of his dubious character as long as he de-
serves such a character. Neither can we see why
an unskilful, cowardly, or disobedient engineer or
pilot requires further penalty for his default of
duty than to be pointed at as the man who has
wrecked a train or sunk a ship.

Another point needs to be fixed. The treatment
of men who are discharged from imprisonment
has usually been an outrage. Society arrests a
man and breaks his ordinary relations, perhaps
confines him at hard labor, and then later casts him
out of doors with little or no provision for his
necessities. Patients thus thrown out of the hos-
pital upon the streets would be expected to suffer
a relapse. No wonder that crime becomes chronic
in the case of men to whom all doors except those
leading downward are shut in their faces. It is
said that the wrong-doer deserves nothing better.
Who knows how much any of us would get on the
ground of mere deserts ? We do not aim in a
democracy at bare justice, but at something infi-
nitely higher — the welfare of all kinds of men.
We must not only give men wholesome work while
we confine them ; we must teach them how to' do
such work as the world is willing to pay for ; we
must also give them some reward for their labor,

144 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to be paid them when they go out from confine-
ment ; and we must take pains to help them find
honest occupation and decent friends, so as to
make vaUd connection again with the vital forces
of society. Otherwise, we neither save the man
nor protect society.

Moreover, it is to be feared that many strangers
fall into the criminal class through the misfortune
of their ignorance. Modern society has made new
crimes and misdemeanors which earlier men never
heard of. Who has ever told the Chinese laundry-
men that it is a sin to play for money, in a city
where millions of dollars change hands every day
on the stock exchange ? Ought not a democratic
people to take special pains to publish, and even
to explain and justify, new laws or rules, and per-
haps to give a considerable time of preparation
before fines and penalties are enforced .''

Again, it it doubtful how far public morals are
furthered by reforming legislation that is distinctly
in advance of the thoughts and the habits of the
average population, — legislation, for example, in
favor of purity, or temperance, or against gam-
bling. It is a dangerous and anomalous condition
when a mere section or a majority of a commun-
ity, undertake to treat a considerable protesting

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 145

minority with fines and penalties as lawbreakers.
This is not democratic government, for it lacks
the elements of sympathy and cooperation. It is
certain to be carried out with harshness and
arrogance, or else the laws themselves fall into
desuetude.

To sum up our argument, we have to consider
the penal system with its courts and its houses of
detention in the light of a moral health depart-
ment. The wise magistrate, like the wise physi-
cian, will send as few patients as possible to the
confinement of the hospital, for only the few need
drugs and surgery. The hospital will also dis-
charge its patients as soon as possible and set them
about their work. On the other hand, the pest-
house will be in reserve for the extreme case of
those — the most pitiable of all — who are judged
to be beyond cure, or whose presence in society
is clearly shown to be an intolerable infection, like
the plague or smallpox.

It follows that we shall require, not alone for
judges, but also for sheriffs, constables, policemen,
and wardens, a superior class of men to those who
have hitherto mostly served the older penal sys-
tem. It has been deemed enough at best to have
just officers to represent the majesty of the law.

146 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

It has been uncommon if in any good sense the
wrong-doer regarded them as his friends. He has
more likely thought them his sworn enemies.
But we shall expect these officers in the future
to be men of more than usual humanity, in fact,
the type of men who make the best physicians
or ministers. Men will be specially educated
to seek and take these places. The most hard-
ened criminal will discover that these officers are
his friends — not sent to hunt him down like
a brute, least of all to torture and degrade him,
but to help him if possible to make a man of
himself. There can be no other form of penal
system fitting to a democracy. The officers of
the law must come to represent not the ill will,
but the good will of the community, not the
interests of property, but of mankind. While in
an inchoate state of society, anomalous and ex-
ceptional moral conditions may excuse the use
of force and constraint, the spirit and the prin-
ciples of democracy bid us use as little force as
possible, and for the shortest possible time. The
presumption of democracy is against restraint
and compulsion. The presumption is to treat
men as well, and not to treat them as sick. There
must be overpowering reasons, to which in gen-

THE TREATMENT OF CRIME 1 47

eral the sick or the unfortunate would themselves
consent, before they can be subjected to any form
of public duress. As soon as this rule is obeyed
in any state, the problem of the criminal class will
cease to present serious difficulty.

Finally, the state, like the individual, must be
willing to forgive injury. This is almost a new
doctrine in the world, but it proceeds from the
consideration of the idea of reasonable democracy.
Let the worst criminal show that he has come to
his manhood, and we have no wish or need to
segregate him from others. Give him reasonable
probation, and let his past be put behind him. In
fine, we treat him as we treat the insane who
appear to have recovered their sanity ; with
proper caution, indeed, but with the hope of
permanent cure.

XIII

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM

How large a proportion of people are supported
in whole or in part by the labor of all the others ?
Without counting children, the number of those
at any given time who for various reasons are
doing nothing and earning nothing is very large.
There is always, except perhaps in an extraor-
dinary season, a host of men temporarily out of
employment. Every trade or profession has its
considerable fringe of members who get barely
enough work in a year to make a living. One
condition of a sufficient supply of workmen in a
busy time is that in dull times many have nothing
to do. Ill health and low vitality, want of skill
or good sense, illiteracy, intemperance, or other
bad habits, untidiness and slovenliness, sheer
laziness, a sullen temper or disagreeable manners,
— all contribute reasons enough why many men
are always " out of a job." Thousands of men
travel up and down through the country as
" tramps " and too often fall into crime.

148

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 149

The number is also large who have been
incapacitated from work, at least for a time, by
reason of accidents. Thus, the list of annual
casualties among railway employees reminds one
of the losses of a terrific battle. This is a part of
the price we pay for living in an age of ma-
chinery.

Moreover, the burden of old age tends to press
upon modern workmen earlier than in the plod-
ding times of our forefathers. Few elderly men
are found in machine shops and factories. The
rapid change of methods and processes and the
invention of new machines dislocate the older
men from their places, who do not easily adjust
themselves to new requirements.

Again, the growing wealth, comfort, and kindli-
ness of the world, aided by modern medical
science, enable a multitude of weakly people to
survive to old age, who in a more strenuous or
barbarous period would have hardly passed beyond
infancy.

The opening of all sorts of industrial oppor-
tunities to the competition of women, while per-
fectly fair, involves a certain displacement of men.
While some women have gained independence,
other women are rendered more dependent than

I50 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

before. A good many are unable to keep up with
the pace of the industrial machinery and fall
behind to be supported by others. The period
of marriage is deferred ; the risks of married life
and its high scale of cost deter men and women
from entering it.

Thus all who work carry, as it were, upon
their backs, almost as in the days of miUtarism,
an army of those who either will not or can-
not work. Many complain that this condition
is owing to the present free or "competitive"
system of industry. It would be more accurate
to recognize that pauperism, like many other dis-
eases, marks a lack of health or virility in the
social body. Organize the world to-morrow into
a socialist state, and you will have to con-
sider, as now, how best to help those who
seem to need more than they can give in re-
turn. There will still be those who lack the
skill, the health, the power, or the will to work.
You will have to continue the eternal labor of
education and of moral discipline.

It is not altogether easy to define pauperism.
It is the name of a social disease, but no one
can distinguish the line where poverty passes
over into actual helplessness. Pauperism is a

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 151

name of disgrace, but the more we know of
the conditions through which men and women
sink into pauperism, the harder it is to cast
blame upon them. So far as we venture to
blame people, it is not because they are poor
and need help. There are a host of people,
the feeble in body, the aged, invalids, whom
society is more than willing to help, whose pa-
tience and gentleness, whose friendly smiles and
good temper, constitute a benediction upon all
who see them. We never blame those who do
as well as they can. Those rarely are useless
who wish to be useful. We blame only those
who are willing to be useless, who like to be
carried by the labor of others, who imagine that
the world owes them a living. But we blame
such as these even if they are rich. We cannot
really be very hard upon the tramp who eats at
the kitchen door, if we who feed him and then
try to get rid of him are living out of what
other men have produced, without giving any
equivalent service in return.

It is evident that society, that is, all of us,
are already supporting the needy, both the de-
serving and the undeserving. We support them
mostly through personal channels, as well as by

152 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

means of public relief. We do this work with
some loss and waste and more or less actual
hardship. Can we do it in any other way bet-
ter than we do it now ? How far is it right
.to intervene by process of law or by force, if
necessary — as we do in the case of the health
department — to save the unfortunate from their
own faults, to break up families on occasions, or
to forbid marriage between distinctly unsuitable
parties ?

These questions cannot be answered so easily for
great cities as they might have been answered
for rural or village communities. For multitudes
to-day suffer from fluctuating industrial conditions
for which all society is responsible, — conditions
inseparably involved as incidental to various pro-
cesses of development through which society is
passing. For many of these processes, as, for
example, from rural to urban life, no one can
be held to blame.

There is a tendency to throw the relief of the
poor more and more upon the state. Let the
state arrange and supervise a system of accident
insurance as in Germany. Let the state assume
a vast system of old-age pensions. Let it stand
ready to provide every one with employment. Let

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 1 53

it, therefore, take over at least the principal indus-
tries so as to have plenty of work at all times
to distribute. Seeing that society already doubt-
less spends hundreds of millions of dollars in
relieving the necessities of those who cannot
work, why not assume this same burden once
for all as a part of the regular task of the
state ?

On the other hand, it is rather remarkable,
when we count the millions of our populations,
how far we are already learning voluntarily to
cooperate in a thousand very natural and humane
methods to relieve one another's distress, and how
well on the whole we succeed. There were never
before so many benefit orders and mutual insur-
ance societies ; there were never such colossal
schemes for pensioning, for example, railway
employees ; there was never so much wise and
helpful private aid bestowed, — I do not mean by
the rich to the poor, but by relatives and neigh-
bors to one another, by the poor to their fellows.

What men fail to see is that all this effort is
a constant discipline in sympathy and humanity.
The world grows more generous by the daily
exercise of its friendliness. This costs time and
money and constitutes what men call " sacrifice."

154 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Could as fine results in civilization come in any
other way ? Is it not better that the son should
care for his aged mother than that she should
merely draw a pubHc pension and take care of
herself ? Is it not essential that help rendered to
relieve human infirmities should carry the personal
touch, as given by some kinsman or friend, rather
than go under the stamp of an official ?

Moreover, an important part of the upward
movement of society is in learning values. This
is also a costly discipline, which can never be had
for nothing. Does the parent lazily give his child
whatever he desires ? Or does he pay the child
for trifling services and errands more than the
work is worth ? The child never learns the values
of money, or in other words, of labor and skill, by
easy gifts or fictitious wages. He must actually
see the worth of his work as compared with the
scale of standards by which human labor is gen-
erally rated. So long as the child does not do
enough to earn the cost of his living he needs to
know the truth. So in the case of men generally.
It is not good for a man to be paid, under the
name of wages, more than his work is worth. If
we give men pensions, the pensions ought dis-
tinctly to be earned. If employment is to be fur-

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 1 55

nished to men out of work, the demand of manly
self-respect is that such work shall not cost more
to the public than it brings in.

It is notorious that in an army there is a percen-
tage of men who add nothing to the efficient or
fighting force, and who cost more than they are
worth. So, unfortunately, in every department of
industry there are those who fall below the mark
of profitable efficiency. Does not any scheme for
the relief of this class rest upon a falsehood, if it
proposes to pay even a "minimum wage" in
excess of the value rendered to society ? If I am
a bricklayer and fail to lay bricks enough in a day
to make good what I cost, ought I not to know
the truth about my work ? If my farming is so
negligent that I cannot live upon my product,
ought not the kindly help of my neighbors, made
necessary by my failure, to serve as a spur to my
energy to learn to farm my land more effectively ?
It seems clear that in any just scheme of society
the distinction must be maintained between the
work that is worth paying for and the work that
does not pay for itself, or is only educative, or
serves at best as a test of honesty and good will.

America has learned a very costly lesson as to
the peril of a national system of pensions. The

156 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

very men who began their relation to the general
government on the side of patriotic service in the
Civil War, presently developed an enormous hun-
ger for public aid. Congresses and presidents
proved to be powerless to resist the increasing
demands of an organized pensionary class, who a
generation after the ^sly still require from the
taxation of all the people a sum as large as the
German empire lavishes upon its gigantic mili-
tary establishment.

Moreover, no governmental system of pensions
reaches the real paupers, that is, those who are
content to live upon the labor of others. Since
laziness or selfishness survives from savage
times, it seems likely that for a long period the
world will have to contend and to bear with
pauperism, as we must fight and endure disease.
The two problems are of a similar nature. No
outward scheme of organization will more than
shift the burden of cost. While the spirit of
democracy urges endless sympathy, it can never
suffer us to shut our eyes to the facts of life and
the stern but kindly laws that guide the growth
of society.

On the other hand, we may well hope to develop
out of various interesting experiments, now under

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 1 57

trial, a real and considerable amelioration of the
evils of pauperism. We are coming to recognize
that it is a matter of common concern that the
men who serve in ten thousand posts of danger
shall not suffer accidents and disease alone and
unaided. We are responsible together for the
conditions under which a large part of the labor
of the world goes on. If we had better not
guarantee state pay and state relief to every one,
we are bound to take the more care (perhaps, with
the aid of legislation) that the field of industry
shall be practically covered with a sufficient net-
work of various forms of insurance societies.
Seeing that the public is a party to the use of
labor, in all public service enterprises, the Ger-
man method of supplementing other sources of
insurance and pension income by governmental
grants is suggestive. We who ride in the trains
on which brakemen and engineers are injured,
may be justly asked to contribute along with their
associates and the owners of the railways to help
protect them against distress. We, too, owe them
something. If the railways sometime become the
property of the people, this duty will be the more
obvious. It will also in that case bring its risks of
extravagance.

158 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Again, society is growing rich in its corporate
capacity. Already an increasing amount of value
in lands, buildings, and equipments belongs to
the people as shareholders in municipal, state, and
national enterprise. Unfortunately this value is
largely overbalanced by our wasteful habit of
public debts, lent and owned by the few and paid
by the many, tinder a just system of taxation,
this indebtedness must at last be wiped out, and
the people will become the owners in full of all
public property.

Without entering here upon subjects in dis-
pute, it must be evident that large domains of
wild and forest land, mines, franchises, and other
natural resources ought never to have been alien-
ated from the people. It might be granted also that
the lands on which cities have grown up ought
properly to have been made the sources of public
income and not the means of enriching a few
promoters and speculators, a privileged class. It
is not too much to hope that what ought never
to have gone from the hands of all the people
will some day be recovered for the use of the
people. The experience of the Swiss people is
encouraging on this point.

It never pauperizes a people to own and

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 1 59

manage a certain amount of public property.
The slums which breed disease and vice in
our great cities would soon disappear if the in-
crease of the wealth in the land, which now goes
to a small portion of their people, were made to
flow to all the inhabitants upon whose joint labor
and prosperity the value of land doubtless rests.

May not the lovers of democracy justly look
forward to a time when every self-respecting
family shall inherit, as its birthright, out of the
growing public wealth of the nation, at least as
much as the use, rent-free, of its home.-^ That
the well-to-do shall inherit as much as the value
of a house to live in, we accept as a matter of
course. But why should we not assume as much
as this for all honorable citizens ? The control
of the home is almost the essential condition of
good citizenship. The truth is, that we have come
into the use of a world which through generations
the labor of the ancestors of practically all of us
have toiled, suffered, and shared in preparing and
enriching. It seems only reasonable that to a
certain extent all citizens should be recognized
as the heirs of this wealth. Provided with a de-
cent home, as the common right of the family,
few people would any longer suffer the condi-

l6o THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

tions which now reduce so many to pauperism.
The democracy can never be content to contem-
plate a great houseless, proletariat class. The
democracy can never comfortably face the ques-
tion why, in a world fast growing rich, only the
few should possess all and the many should in-
herit nothing to keep them from hunger and
cold. May it not indeed be a condition of safe-
guarding the proper rights of private property
to take steps to resume in behalf of all the peo-
ple that considerable proportion of wealth which
ought always to go down from generation to gen-
eration as the property of the people?

XIV

MAJORITY RULE

It is a pity that, when citizens meet together to
vote, they still carry over into the working of the
democracy the traditions of a military or savage
regime. We repudiate the idea that the democ-
racy is a brute "tug of war " between antagonistic
crowds. The fundamental thought is mutual
understanding, conciHation, and common effort.
Nevertheless, issues arise when, after all persua-
sion, votes must be taken and decisions must be
recorded. What shall we then do with the unwill-
ing minority ? The answer to this question depends
upon how much of the democratic spirit we pos-
sess. The democratic theory is, that the ruling
majority are seeking the welfare of the whole
people, not of the majority alone ; that they will
not therefore act without proper discussion, or
without giving opportunity to hear all sides of a
question and to listen to the possible protests of
individual citizens.

Men used to say, " The king can do no wrong."
i6i

1 62 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

We know that the majority of a people may be as
fallible and even perhaps as wilful as the king used
to be. Hence the more care is needed, especially
wherever a minority is large and intelligent, not to
do in the assumed name of all the people what
may really be unjust to many of them, and possibly,
in the long run, to all. The theory of kingship, at
its best, always was that the king was the trustee
for the interests of the people. The theory of
democracy is likewise that the ruling majority acts
for the whole people, not Uke a bad king, to com-
pel its own will or to serve its selfish interests.

The determination of questions by the vote of a
majority is simply a matter of convenience, for
want of any better or more accurate machinery of
choice. There is nothing in itself sacred in this
method. The community, the city, or the state is
confronted by practical problems. Shall we build
a bridge ? Shall we make a toll-road free .'* Shall
we introduce water or erect a schoolhouse ? Shall
we borrow money ? How shall we raise- our com-
mon revenue for needful public expenses ? Shall
the nation sell its public lands ? Shall the nation
take the control of railways ? Shall we restrict
the natural rights of all the people to buy certain
goods where they please, in order to help Individ-

MAJORITY RULE 1 63

uals build up new industries, for the assumed
advantage of the nation ? Such questions as these
by the dozen challenge the people of a progressive
modern community.

Modern society cannot sit still. It must decide
and move, or else wait and perhaps suffer by
delay. The tacit agreement therefore, sanctioned
by long usage, is that what the majority vote, after
due deliberation, shall be taken as the sense of the
whole people. The minority will behave as they
would wish the others to do if the situation were
reversed. Otherwise, what possible action could
be taken by the community ? In general we all
agree to this method of decision. It is the best
we know.i

There are certain important limitations which
mankind has already learned with respect to the
theory of majority rule. New limitations are
already in sight. We have learned, for example,
that no majority may ever enforce upon even the
few their religious or other opinions. The welfare ,
of society demands that thought shall be free.

1 The old Greek system of election by lot, preposterous as it
may seem, was quite as democratic and just as our elections
generally are. It worked to secure at least a few men who were
quite free to serve the interests of the city.

1 64 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Religion especially demands liberty. Modern men
have no respect for a religion that cannot face the
light. Our fathers did not see this. They were
ready to exile or punish men for their opinions.
It will be a sorrowful day if the world ever forgets
the immense cost that our fathers have paid for
our freedom of thought and opinion.

We not only cannot compel our religion upon
others, we cannot enforce the morality of a mere
majority. It must be proved beyond question that
an individual is doing injury to society, in order to
warrant the majority in branding him as a criminal.
Thus, the democracy cannot enforce Sunday laws,
as in old times, on the ground of the supposed
duty of "keeping the Sabbath "; for all men are
not agreed in recognizing this duty. The Sun-
day laws are coming to represent merely a com-
mon social agreement to maintain one day in
seven for the rest, the recreation, or the instruction
of the people, as each sees fit to use the day.

The marriage laws likewise represent a long
experience in the evolution of the family. Some
of the people would like to make them stricter ;
others, little thinking of the social consequences,
would suffer them to be relaxed. The general
agreement touches what the vast majority of the

MAJORITY RULE 1 65

people believe to be for the common morality, for
the protection of children, for the encouragement
of a noble ideal of domestic life. The marriage
and divorce laws of modern society must on the
whole commend themselves, not to a bare major-
ity, but to the whole people, as for the common
advantage.

A considerable section of highly reputable
American people hold that it is only a question of
winning a majority, when they will enact universal
prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and use of
alcoholic beverages throughout the United States.
Another eager section suppose that by a majority
vote they could rightfully inaugurate national
socialism. What a singular misunderstanding of
the nature of a democratic regime ! To compel
sumptuary or socialist legislation upon an unwilling
and reluctant minority would not be democracy,
but a species of tyranny. Where is the freedorfi,
or the fraternity, if you force the decree of your
conscience or your theory of economics, any
more than your religion, upon those who do not
believe it ?

The immediate danger is that hasty majorities
will thoughtlessly throw away the liberty that
has made popular government possible. Wit-

1 66 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ness the action of the Congress of the United
States. It has passed laws — a shame to civil-
ization— which serve to prevent even educated
Chinamen from coming to our shores. It has
sought to forbid harmless men from bringing
certain unpopular opinions into America. Wit-
ness the shameful Turner case ! It has erected
artificial barriers between ourselves and our ex-
cellent and friendly neighbors in Canada, to say
nothing of the rest of the world. No mere
majority ought ever to have the legal authority
to enact measures of oppression, against the plain
teaching of human experience.

It will be asked, ** How shall any new stand-
ard of morality or of political advancement come
at all, if we may not vote it in as soon as we
get a majority for it .? " Let it come, we reply,
in the natural order of things, first, as an ideal
sfeen by the few ; next, as a principle of conduct
winning its way because it is best ; next by per-
suasion, example, and imitation, and by one step
of fair trial at a time, for example, through local
option ; and last of all, through substantially
general consent, by such acts of legislation as
confirm the public will. What valid moral law is
there to-day which does not rest upon the gen-

MAJORITY RULE 1 67

eral consent of the whole body of people ? Thus,
our boasted civilized law of monogamy long
worked its way, without any legislation . what-
ever, and survived and at last made legislation,
not because it was weak and needed protection,
but because it constituted the strongest and hap-
piest type of family and nation. Legislation and
legal force only confirm it, — somewhat as the
stamp of the government mint gives currency to
a piece of precious metal. But its value rests
upon the general demand of the people.

We have seen that it is a purely arbitrary rule
that a majority shall decide a public question in
behalf of all the people. There are certain grave
issues, such, for example, as a change in the
state or national constitution, where we demand
a two-thirds vote. We demand this in certain
cases to override the veto of an executive by
a legislature. We generally require the unani-
mous vote of a jury in its solemn condemnation
of a criminal. The question arises whether, in
fairness to all the people, we ought not to bring
many other grave cases under the decision of a
two-thirds, or even sometimes a three-fourths vote.
Is it fair for a bare majority of the nation to
force the whole people to sacrifice the natural

l68 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

right of free trade ? Ought the majority of the
Congress of the United States to be empowered
to plunge the nation into an offensive war, as in
the late war with Spain ? We earnestly question
whether local option or other prohibitory laws
ought not to require at least the vote of two-thirds
of the citizens. This is because democratic gov-
ernment ought to be essentially cooperation.

So in the realm of industry and trade. It is
unfair for a mere majority of a labor union to
declare industrial war by a strike or a boycott.
Neither have the owners of railroads or of coal
mines the right to precipitate, by a majority vote
of a directorate, untold losses on all the people
of a nation, or to levy a tax at pleasure on all
their property.

Unfortunately, we do not largely succeed as yet
in the United States in enjoying even majority
rule. Many citizens do not vote at all. Repre-
sentatives to Congress and other public offices
not unfrequently get their election by a small
fraction of their constituents. The state of Mis-
sissippi affords astonishing figures to illustrate
this. In that state, in 1904, less than one-sixth
of the men of voting age actually voted for
President.

MAJORITY RULE 1 69

Even Presidents have been elected by a mi-
nority of the votes of the people. Probably
many a senator sits in Congress who could not
retain his seat for a day if the people of his
state were suffered to vote directly for or against
him.

For most officers, we allow a bare plurality,
sometimes a mere faction of a party, to elect
our candidates. Measures of importance are en-
acted by the aid of representatives who have
made log-rolling deals to vote for what they do
not believe to be for the public good, in return
for getting support for their own pet legislation.
Their votes do not represent majority rule, but
its defeat. At every popular election thousands
of voters help to choose men whom they do not
wish, who have practically put themselves up for
office. How can any man ever be free to serve
the people who has had to manoeuvre or beg his
way to an election.?

It has been said that Great Britain is still sub-
stantially ruled by an oligarchy. The same may
be said of America. The democracy at best
has only a veto power in extreme crises. Too
often the ring or the "boss" rules. A promi-
nent Pennsylvanian said to a neighbor, " Every

I/O THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

man has a chance to become a boss, and this
is what makes a democracy."

Various superficial expedients have been pro-
posed for bringing out an actual vote of all the
people. Thus it has become common to send
carriages at the expense of the party treasuries,
or worse yet, at the cost of scheming individuals,
to convey voters to the polls. But we doubt
whether any man's vote, who will not take the
pains to convey himself to the polls, is a valid
contribution to the public welfare or wisdom.
Why should a man be given a free ride for his
vote and not money also to pay for his time ?

No less unpromising is the suggestion of fining
non-voters, or in some way compelling their vote.
Who wishes the public opinion of men who are
driven like so many criminals to the polls by
the fear of fines and penalties ? If a citizen
has no opinion or "choice," why should he be
urged to say by his vote what cannot be true
or useful.? A great vote proves nothing of the
success or the quality of a democracy.-

It is no wonder, however, that voters take little
interest in politics and hardly know on which
side to throw their votes. While public business
largely consists in advancing private and very

MAJORITY RULE I/I

distant interests, while it concerns affairs in the
Orient rather than domestic necessities, while it
deals with intricate tariffs, while there is little
room for intelligent choice between parties or
candidates, many people will remain in doubt of
what use it is to exercise the ballot. The people
need to have some hope of usefulness. There are
various questions upon which they should act
directly, and not merely through legislatures.
Propose genuine public business, propose it for
the sake of the public good, show people how
it concerns them, and they will instinctively
come to take an interest in it. Let those who
are without interest in the issues of an election
abstain from voting if they like. Urgency should
be expended first on the making of a more in-
telligent electorate rather than upon the mar-
shalling of uninformed voters to the polls. The
fact is, that the exigencies of a feverish parti-
sanship and the use of patronage have created
an abnormal demand for thoughtless voters.
With the destruction of the spoils system this
fictitious demand will subside.

It is unfortunate that in most elections the issues,
even when real ones, are too complex to permit
intelligent expression of opinion. Thus, in a recent

1/2 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

presidential election the issues of sound money and
of an imperial policy were so confused that no one
could show what his real wish was upon either
subject. So also, in a late state election in Mas-
sachusetts, the voter was asked to choose a lieuten-
ant-governor, not on his merits as a man or his
fitness for office, but rather as a crude means of
expressing an opinion in favor of a reciprocity
treaty with Canada.

The extended use of the referendum will doubt-
less tend to put an end to such baffling anomalies
in our system of ascertaining the will of the
people. Real popular government will come only
so far and so fast as it is possible for the voter
to make his vote effective and to be hopeful of
results, — to hit the exact mark with it.

Important as valid majority rule may seem, in
place of the rule of a few or of a part, there is one
result even more important, namely, the harmo-
nious rule of the whole body. This is not so futile
an ideal as many may think. On most subjects of
political action it is practicable to expect substan-
tial unanimity of the mass of the citizens. They
are largely unanimous now as regards a consider-
able number of their common concerns, — the
generous support of the schools, the desire for

MAJORITY RULE 1/3

justice and fair play. Wherever a clean issue is
intelligently presented to them, they tend to take
the side of humanity. As they are better educated
and obtain more worthy leaders, the subjects will
increase in number upon which they will act with
satisfaction together and at least be content with
the verdict at the polls. This is the natural trend
of civilization. For the proof of human progress
is in the ability of men to act harmoniously
together, as distinguished from the barbarous
habit of feuds and factions. Multitudes already
have learned to live and work together in our
great cities with habitual order and good will.
These multitudes are learning the same good will
in the conduct of their elections. Their children
in the public schools are daily learning to act
together. The forces that urge men toward closer
industrial and political cooperation are subtle,
profound, and irresistible.

XV

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

The democratic idea of government takes on a
great and rather perilous modification when it has
to be adjusted to the management of the interests
of large populations. There are obviously only a
few simple subjects which are suitable to be de-
cided, as it were " off hand," by a vote of the mass
of the people. Even when important lines of
policy must be settled by the votes of the people,
the determination of the methods of framing and
carrying out the will of the people must naturally
be intrusted to the hands of committees, select-
men, councils, and legislatures.

The theory of representative government is easy
to state. The word " representative " suggests
what ought to be done. The council, the legis-
lature, or the congress should be in miniature
what the people are in mass. The little body
should reflect, as completely as may be, the politi-
cal thoughts, opinions, sentiments, aspirations,
and ideals which are most actively present in the

174

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 1 75

minds of the people. In other words, the legisla-
tive body should represent — not one section of
the people or one mode of public opinion among
them, but all sections and parties and modes of
thought.

Suppose in any city or state there are those who
favor public ownership of the railways, others who
avow themselves to be socialists, others who want
the public to own the railway tracks, but think it
best for private corporations to run the cars, and
others who hold to the system of private or cor-
porate ownership and management of all such
enterprises. The ideal council or legislature
ought to reflect these varieties of opinion. It ought
also to be sure to embody in itself the interests
of farmers, working-men, professional men, mer-
chants, and manufacturers, — in short, all classes
and conditions of men.

A genuine representative body would thus be
an example of what is called proportional repre-
sentation. Every considerable element of popular
movement would have a voice to express itself in
the legislative assembly, precisely as every such
element actually has a voice in the town-meeting
or other popular assembly. Each active element
in the political life of the people would have voices

176 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

and votes in proportion to the numbers, the weight,
and the interest which it commanded. This is the
only tenable theory of representative government.

When we say that a legislative body should rep-
resent the people, we do not mean that the repre-
sentatives should be no better than the average of
the citizenship who elect them. They ought of
course to be selected men, above the average for
honesty, discretion, and experience. Any child is
able to see this. If the people really and freely
chose their representatives, if candidates were
obHged to wait till the people wanted them, instead
of pushing their own election by unseemly ur-
gency, the natural tendency would be to select
good representatives. Here is the function of the
aristocratic element in the democracy. Choose
only the right kind of aristocrats, namely, the best
of the people, who will give their skilled service
for the sake of the people. Such are the Lincolns
and the Gladstones !

There are two chief ends to be secured in rep-
resentative government, as distinguished from the
direct action of a pure democracy. The represen-
tative must truly represent the people who have
chosen him. If they have elected him upon an
issue of some proposed reform or public improve-

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 1 77

ment, or, as in the era of the Civil War, upon the
question of the maintenance of the Union, the rep-
resentative must evidently act and vote as the people
who chose him substantially direct. If he changes
his mind and wishes to vote on the other side of
the question, he must resign or appeal to the peo-
ple for instructions. From time to time and on
certain simple issues, he is merely an instructed
delegate.

But a representative is not merely an instructed
delegate. There are many questions for the set-
tlement of which the people practically require
him to use time and special care, and possibly su-
perior experience and wisdom, to help determine
\ the public policy in their behalf. The many can-
not profitably enter into those matters of detail
that demand the discussion of various sides and
aspects of a subject. They employ their repre-
sentatives as they would employ a physician, a
lawyer, or an expert business adviser.
if The theory of representative government is
^hat, when a legislature or congress has fairly de-
ated a subject and then proceeds by a vote to
adopt a method, a policy, a reform, a public outlay,
this action shall stand, as if all the people had
voted upon it. This is for the sake of proper effi-

1/8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ciency and the expedition of business. In most
' cases, there is no reason against using this form
of representative action, instead of the more cum-
bersome form of appeal to the people.

Unfortunately, our American representative sys-
'tem is singularly hampered by certain awkward
and ilUberal restrictions which tend to vitiate legis-
lative action. Thus the American democracy is
not as free as the English people in the breadth
of its choice of strong and able men. The
English constituency may elect the ablest men
whom it can find, whether inside or outside the
district. We Americans must limit ourselves to a
choice from actual residents in a district. It is as
if the people of a town forbade themselves to
call in a doctor from the next town.

Another piece of bad and undemocratic ma-
chinery is to be found in the electoral district
system. Each state is divided into a number of
congressional districts in such a way as to make
it not only possible but likely, that a single party
will enjoy representation out of all proportion to
its actual numbers. Missouri, for example, in the
Fifty-eighth Congress had fifteen Democratic rep-
resentatives and only one Republican. In the very
year while this Congress was sitting the same state

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 1 79

cast a Republican majority for President. So
evenly were parties balanced. The states of Con-
necticut and Vermont by this unfair system of
electoral districts sent Republican representatives
only to Congress. The same anomaly prevails
in the smaller districts which choose the state leg-
islatures. This is neither good democracy nor
honest representative government. Evidently, no
group of people whose numbers are sufficient to
entitle them to a share of the representatives
ought to be compelled to be represented by their
political rivals. Neither ought respectable bodies
of independent citizens to be deprived of all real
representation. It is an affront to the intelligence
of our people to suppose that this injustice can-
not be corrected. Various practical forms of pro-
portional representation are already in sight.

Our representative system loudly calls for re-
inforcement and enlargement by certain simple
expedients which have had favorable trial in
Switzerland and Australia, and also in some of
our own states. A plebiscite for the alteration
of the constitution of a state is already required.
There are important issues that equally deserve
to be especially remanded to the body of the
people. It is true that such issues should be

l80 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

simple and so stated as to require the vote of Yes
or No. There are calls for special expenditure
of money, the extension of the public credit, or
the granting of franchises to corporations, which
ought not to be decided by the few, but by an
appeal to all. The appeal, or " referendum," to
the intelligence, the conscience, and the public
spirit of the people is a discipline in character.
Moreover, a legislative body is likely to do better
work if its members know that negligent or
corrupt measures are liable to review and rebuke
by special vote of the people.

Why should we all sit by and see a city council,
a legislature, or a congress, itself the creation of
the people, enact measures of dubious wisdom,
or of threatened extravagance, while we are
unable to make immediate and effective protest .*•
In fact, if there were always perfect freedom of
motion (whether with or without prescribed legal
sanction) by which the people could express them-
selves at once in protest against hasty or careless
legislative action, for instance, against the grant-
ing of a public franchise, or an extravagant ap-
propriation, legislatures and city councils would
always stand upon their good behavior.

Besides the referendum, already in limited use

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT i8l

in America, there is good reason for establishing
the excellent Swiss system of the " initiative."
The few promoters of favored interests con-
fessedly exercise too much power. Why should
not the many, as well as the few, be enabled to
bring forward appropriate legislation for the con-
sideration of all the people .-* A reasonable pro-
portion of the voters ought at all times to be able,
through appropriate political machinery, both to
call an immediate halt upon questionable legisla-
tion, and also to set new measures before the
people. Nothing less than this is democratic
government. To deny this right is to distrust the
people and to institute an oligarchy.

The weak side of popular government at pres-
ent is in its legislative system. Faults charged
to democracy ought in reason to be charged to
legislatures and congresses. The fault is not so
much with the common people who elect as it is
with the men who are elected. The members of
the higher representative bodies are apt to be
fairly well educated and owners of property. A
considerable proportion of them are lawyers.
Nevertheless, these bodies are constantly passing
measures of corruption and extravagance, to the
injury of the plain people for whom all legisla-

Ck

182 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

tures are supposed to act. It is not the people
of Philadelphia, or the people of the state of
Illinois, who venally sell their public franchises
at the behest of scheming corporations. This
kind of work is not done by the illiterate or at
their bidding. It is done by men of the well-to-do
class, and with the quiet consent of the '* best
people." This is not the failure of democracy.
The remedy is to appeal to the good sense and
the conscience of the people. The legislative
bodies instinctively avoid this kind of appeal.

Meanwhile, the tendency on the part of legis-
latures everywhere is to usurp the functions and
the power of the people. Whereas, city councils,
legislatures, and congresses are strictly the crea-
tion and the servants of the people, and their
appropriate office is to help thresh out the cum-
brous details of public affairs, and to give their
leisure, care, and deliberation to proposed measures
and laws, — in fact they tend to make themselves
guardians and rulers of the people instead of
trustees, counsellors, and stewards, for their
benefit.

It cannot be too often emphasized that home
rule, or the doctrine of local responsibility, is an
essential principle of democratic government.

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 183

There is nothing so highly educative to a people
as to make them directly responsible for ordering
their own affairs. The legislators practically deny
this principle. They like to keep business out of
the hands of the people. They prefer to decide
for them rather than to let them decide for them-
selves. They come actually to distrust the people
who appoint them.

This tendency toward the usurpation of power
is seen in an extreme form in the Senate of the
United States. Men have notoriously come to
buy their way into this body by the expenditure
of fortunes. It is so far removed from the public
that its tedious usages and its " senatorial cour-
tesy " are openly permitted to block the way of
public business. Its best men lack the courage
to make it a really popular body. Who imagines
that a resolution to require the election of the
senators by the actual majority of the people of
each state would carry the consent of the Senate ?
There are patriotic men in the Senate. Why are
we obliged to distrust their sympathy in the case
of so reasonable and democratic a proposition ?
We touch here one of the most profound prob-
lems now before the country. It will be the
subject of a later chapter.

XVI

DEMOCRACY AND THE EXECUTIVE

Our democratic machinery of government natu-
rally carries with it the survival of various tradi-
tions and details of organization that properly
belong to aristocratic forms of society. Thus the
upper chamber in a legislature or congress is an
obvious reminder of the ancient House of Lords.
No one would think of instituting such an arrange-
ment for the service of a democracy ; and though
its use may be defended as affording a sort of
check upon hasty legislation, there are other modes
far more congruous with the democratic idea, in-
terposing delay upon too precipitate action.

It is, however, in the powers of the executive
that we find the most important and perhaps
the most dangerous survival of the ideas of the
autocratic system of government. The pardoning
power, for example, is frequently lodged in the
hands of the executive. This was fitting in a
monarchy, but such one-man power does not fit
a democracy.

The veto power is another relic of the monarch-
184

DEMOCRACY AND THE EXECUTIVE 1 85

ical system. It is doubtless often used to pro-
tect the interests of the people and to stay reckless
legislation. It is defensible on the ground that the
executive, under the democratic system of govern-
ment, stands above every one else as the represen-
tative of the whole people. But the veto power
is one-man power; its use tends to diminish the
legitimate responsibility of legislators, who too
often pass foolish laws under pressure of private
or corrupt influence, in the hope that their bad
legislation will suffer the veto of the executive.
Strictly the veto power over unwise legislation
should rest, under suitable provision, not with
the executive, — himself the servant of the people,
— but with the people themselves.

The executive also inherits the old monarchical
command over the military forces of a state. Per-
haps it would be difficult to show in whose hands
this power could more wisely be placed. Never-
theless this sole power is incongruous with a demo-
cratic society, precisely as war itself is incongruous
with all the dominant ideals of modern life. So far
therefore as the President or the governor of a state
is a captain-general, the fact represents an excep-
tional or anomalous function of his office. Every
enlightened person must wish that the executive

1 86 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

may have no occasion to serve in this capacity.
In fact, the executive is never chosen in the
United States with reference to military experience.

Again, the executive has more or less power of
appointment and removal of officials. Here is the
evident survival of the theory of one-man power.
In the case of the President of the United States,
this power, though somewhat curtailed by civil
service rules, is still enormous. The system of
partisan patronage is built upon it. Few kings
have at their disposal such gigantic means of ex-
pressing and carrying out their own will as the
President still possesses through this power of
appointment. To a certain limited extent the ex-
ecutive must be able to appoint or to remove his
heads of departments for the sake of the best ad-
ministrative efficiency. But beyond those officers
for whom he is directly responsible or with whom
he has personal relations, the exercise of authority
to dispense executive favors, or again to withhold
or take away official position, upon the vast scale
of the public service of eighty or ninety millions of
people, is wholly undemocratic.

Another survival of the royal prerogative is to
be found in the treaty-making power which the
Constitution of the United States vests in the

DEMOCRACY AND THE EXECUTIVE 1 87

President and the Senate. The power to make
war, though distinctly reserved to Congress, is
subtly involved in the authority which the Presi-
dent holds as commander-in-chief, along with his in-
fluence over the action of the state department. We
have seen this power to involve the nation in possi-
ble war grow by exercise. In President Cleveland's
Venezuelan message with its implied threat, in the
train of events which led to the Spanish War, in
the case of the Boxer rebellion in China, in the
setting up of the republic of Panama, in the pro-
posed collection of debts in San Domingo, we see
how quickly a word or an order of the President
may involve the people of the United States in
the most embarrassing, if not hostile, relations
with another nation. It is at least a very grave
question whether such royal responsibility, not
simply for carrying out the decreed will of the
people, but for initiating novel action, ought to be
given in the name of democracy to a single man.

Again, the course of events since the Spanish
War has carried the American people, without
their ever having expressed their distinct approval,
into the establishment of a very considerable colo-
nial system, after the fashion of the rule of Eng-
land in India. In this new sphere of action,

1 88 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

touching many millions of people, whose language
he cannot speak, the President has been intrusted,
beyond the scope of the Constitution, with the
power of a monarch. President McKinley, as
captain-general or imperator, actually carried on
war to compel the unwilling people of the Philip-
pine Islands to submit to his authority. Here was
a war, at immense cost in blood and treasure, upon
which Congress never voted to enter ! It was a
President's war. Could there be a more perilous
extension of the power of the chief magistrate of
a democratic people ?

There can be no doubt that the executive
should have sufficient power to do what the peo-
ple actually direct. He should also report to the
people, or to their representatives, such lines of
action as may appear desirable for them to un-
dertake. It may impress the popular imagina-
tion when the executive passes those strict limits
of a popular servant, and plays the role of the
prince, takes his own initiative, and "brings
things to pass." It is enough to say that this
is the reverse of the nature of popular govern-
ment. Its picturesqueness conceals the eternal
danger of all forms of one-man power. The
most benevolent prince only breaks the path

DEMOCRACY AND THE EXECUTIVE 1 89

upon which the foolish or arrogant self-will of
smaller men presently travels toward injustice.

We have spoken as if the executive must always
be a single person. We have inherited this idea
from the age of princes. For certain purposes,
as, for example, the mayoralty of a city, it may
prove that one man is more efficient than an
executive board or council. We are told that
the management of a city is largely a business,
which therefore demands centralized responsibil-
ity. But many of the most successful business
enterprises are controlled by an executive board,
whose president is one only among his equals.
Even when the president of a great railway is
the administrative head of the system, his powers
are limited by his directors. Already the busi-
ness world sees reason for alarm at the misuse
of the vast forces of capital by the one-man
power, whenever directors fail to direct. Wit-
ness the history of the Equitable Life Assurance
Society.

Even in the management of the city the great
departments, such as the police and the schools,
are often as well directed by small boards or
commissions as by a single head. Or, if there
is a single man in command, as the superintend-

190 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ent of schools, he acts under the control of the
committee.

There is no condition short of the exigencies of
war, itself a survival of barbarism, where one-
man power seems to be essential in the service
of a democracy. The Swiss, who have gone
further and more successfully in the fulfilment
of democracy than any other nation, govern their
state admirably by a council of seven, of which
the president is only the chairman. This form
is certainly more congruous with the democratic
idea than the headship of a single man, lifted by
special prerogatives above the ranks of his fel-
lows. There surely is no state government in
the American Union which might not be as well
managed after the Swiss system as by a single
governor.

In the case of the government of the United
States we may fairly affirm, with the teaching of
history behind us, and with due respect to the
men whom the nation chooses for its chief magis-
trates, that the average President cannot be ex-
pected to be at the same time so wise and good
and large-minded as to be safely intrusted with
the remarkable and enormous powers which have
gradually fallen to the office. A truly modest

DEMOCRACY AND THE EXECUTIVE 191

and democratic President would prefer to have
these powers largely curtailed.

It may be said that the President is supposed
to take the advice of his cabinet. But the men
in the cabinet are themselves appointed by the
President. It is as if the stockholders of a great
railroad allowed their president to choose his own
directors, whom he could dismiss at will if their
counsel was distasteful to him. Thus in the ad-
ministration of the most elaborate and expensive
public business in the world, we set our Presi-
dent in a position of isolation such as no intelli-
gent body of men would allow in any other great
enterprise. This is because our forefathers, in
ordering our government, took over the tradi-
tions of royal and military authority.

We do not urge these considerations on the
ground of the Old World fear of tyranny. No
one, we may hope, needs seriously to fear that
a President of the United States will deliber-
ately usurp power and oppress his own people.
We are not afraid of Herods and Neros, Tamer-
lanes and Napoleons. But we fear the action of
small, weak, obstinate, and arrogant men, or bus-
tling and impetuous characters, to whose hands
too much power has been committed, — a Pilate too

192 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

eager to please the multitude, a stupid George
III, a President Johnson puffed up with the
sense of his own importance.

There was once thought to be cause for the
apprehension of radical and precipitate action on
the part of the people of a democracy. There
is far greater cause of fear from the rash and
ill-advised action of the executive. The people
have allowed a strain of responsibility to accumu-
late upon the shoulders of their President too
vast for any man to bear. The most benevo-
lent and well-intentioned President may be led
unconsciously to commit acts of arrogance and
utter hasty words whose consequences upon the
peace of the world and the welfare of his peo-
ple no man can measure. The good democracy
has no right to put its chief magistrate in the
way of temptation.

XVII

THE PARTY SYSTEM

The stranger who came to America, having
read about our theory of government, would find
that everything worked in practice differently
from what he had expected. He would have
read that this is a government for the people
and by the people, that office is a public trust,
that the office should seek the man and not the
man the office. He would have read of the
admirable theory that a grand electoral college,
representing the people of all the states, should
choose the executive of the nation, and that the
President should be the servant of the whole
people. He would find the same theory, as far
as the provisions of the Constitution go, for the
choice of senators and congressmen. He might
imagine that they were elected as the best agents
to be had for the public business of the people.
He would not suppose that able and disinterested
men, under our American system, could be prac-
tically ostracized from the service of the people,

^93

194 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

as effectually as if they had been sent into
exile.

Turning from the theory of American gov-
ernment to its actual practice, the stranger would
find a gigantic and complicated system of party
government never contemplated in the Constitu-
tion. He would find the people mainly divided
into two great parties, each continually strug-
gling either to hold, or to seize, the reins of
power. He would find the beautiful scheme of
the electoral college reduced to a sort of honor-
ary vermiform appendage. He would discover
that public officers were generally chosen, not so
much for their ability and patriotism, as for their
qualifications as good party men, and their *' run-
ning power " to get votes. He would find public
offices to an alarming extent regarded as the re-
wards, if not the spoils, of faithful partisan ser-
vice. He would find some of the best men in
every district doomed to private life, as if they
belonged to a disfranchised class, for the fault
of being independent of partisan allegiance, — in
other words, for preferring the public good to
party success. He would discover the recent
growth of a system of laws whereby the gov-
ernment is made actually to take over the con-

THE PARTY SYSTEM I95

trol, and even the expenses, of the party-
caucuses !

It has come to be a common opinion, espe-
cially in England and in the United States,
that democratic government can be carried on
only by the existence of two great permanent
parties. This opinion is fostered by the enor-
mous influence of the partisan press. The peo-
ple are in danger of being hypnotized to the
assumed necessity that every man must array
himself as a loyal member of one or the other
party, — the "ins" or the "outs," as if the get-
ting and keeping the offices were the main end
of all political action ! Ostrogorsky, a very
thoughtful Russian political writer, has recently
done a valuable service in an important and
voluminous book on the history and the failure
of the party system. It is more correctly a trea-
tise on the vice of partisanship. He shows that
the party system has everywhere become exag-
gerated so as to be the enemy of good democracy.
Democracy means all possible union. Partisan-
ship divides men and emphasizes the importance
of differences. Democracy means the utmost
friendliness. Partisanship provokes hostility and
intensifies men's egotism.

196 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Let us briefly see how far the current party
system may be necessary and useful. A slight
reference to familiar history will make this plain.
On the establishment of the government of the
United States there were natural differences
among the men who framed the Constitution.
One set of men tended to favor a highly cen-
tralized form of government; the opposite party,
shy of centralized authority, held that the gov-
ernment ought to meddle as little as possible in
the business of individuals. One group believed
in exalting the supremacy of the nation ; the
other believed in as much as possible of state
rule and home rule. One party were prepared
to believe that a state might withdraw from the
Union; the other party were ready to maintain
the Union as indivisible. The socialistic and the
individualist or anarchical tendency is thus always
swaying men one way or the other.

It was not, however, at first imagined that
these two fundamental tendencies in human na-
ture ought to be divorced from each other and
differentiated into two opposing camps. No one
dreamed that a President of a Federalist habit
of thought might not work harmoniously with a
Vice-President, or a Secretary of State, of the

THE PARTY SYSTEM 1 97

Democratic tendency. The two kinds of thought
naturally shade into each other. The same man
might be on the side of centralized power in
one issue, and on the side of home rule in an-
other. Thus Jefferson, great Democrat as he
was, had little hesitation in using almost dictato-
rial powers in the purchase of Louisiana. In
fact, so far as the socialistic and individualistic
habits of mind prevail, there is nothing to be
gained, but much to be lost, by the sharp divi-
sion of the people into two permanent parties,
one of which only shall be suffered to manage
the government, while the other party is kept in
opposition. The need, on the contrary, is that
the people shall be represented in the govern-
ment by the ablest men of both divergent ten-
dencies of thought, each modifying the other. A
cabinet composed only of the friends of strong
centralization will hardly be so wise, as if it were
made up with the help of the men who tend to
see the advantages of home rule and individual
initiative.

The fathers of the American republic left an
apple of discord in the household. It was the
institution of slavery. Presently an abnormal
line of cleavage showed itself among the people.

198 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The Republican party took its rise in this tre-
mendous issue. It was a combination of men
organized to oppose slavery and to prevent its
extension. It compelled a distinct realignment
of political forces. For a few years definite
measures of action were called for to which the
RepubUcan party was pledged, and which the
Democratic party of that day only existed to
oppose. Here was not an example of normal,
but of quite exceptional and temporary, political
effort. The spirit of war was in the house;
men contended with each other, and almost for-
got that the life of a democracy consists in co-
operation and good will.

After a short period the Republican party had
accomplished its purpose; slavery was overthrown;
the nation was once more united. But the great
party in its death struggle with slavery had built
up a complex organization, like a machine, which
ramified into every village. The opposing party,
too, had paralleled the methods, the machinery,
and the weapons of attack and defence, instituted
by its rivals. Both parties went on by sheer mo-
mentum and force of habit. Neither party now
had any special mission; neither rested on any
foundation of settled principles, which plain people

THE PARTY SYSTEM 1 99

could understand. There was no marked differ-
ence between them. There was only the old dif-
ference of tendency; the party which had fought
the Civil War through on the whole favored a
strong and centralized authority at Washington,
able and willing to intervene to maintain order
throughout the country, and inclined to make
its power felt abroad. Colossal mercantile inter-
ests had learned to lean upon this strong central-
ized government in order to build up their manu-
factures and to protect their business. Democrats
still tended, as in earHer days, mildly to deprecate
the growth of wholesale and unprecedented
national expenditure.

The old party names, however, continually
sounded more hollow. They at last represent no
actual differences. There is more real and honest
difference between men in each party than be-
tween the two parties. The Democratic leaders,
like their Republican rivals, mainly wish to exercise
power and hold office. Neither party promises
any great reform. The Democratic President
Cleveland was as quick to send Federal troops
into Illinois to intervene in a great railway strike,
as President Roosevelt was to offer mediation in
the coal strike of 1902. The same Democratic

200 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

President threw out a hasty menace of war with
Great Britain in the Venezuelan affair. Both par-
ties voted to fight with Spain. Both parties lavish
the people's money on war ships. The men who
furnish campaign funds for both parties are inter-
ested in the same monopolies and the same tariffs.
Both parties are the survival of a condition which
passed away with the settlement of the slavery
question.

Much the same may be said of the history of
the two great English parties. The almost revo-
lutionary issues upon which the Liberal party came
to the front no longer divide the people of Great
Britain, or else they rise in new forms, to which
the present parties were never organized to re-
spond.

So much for the obvious fact of the decadence
of the bi-party system. The fact is, it is not
founded in any truth of human nature. Men are
no more truly divided by nature into two political
camps, as Tories and Liberals, as Democrats and
Republicans, than they are divided morally into
two permanent classes of the bad and good. Men
are naturally of all shades of political opinion and
tendency; they naturally break into groups; they
form and re-form over new issues, and ought to

THE PARTY SYSTEM 201

be free to settle every question on its merits, and
not to use it as a football of party advantage.

See now the positive mischief which the party
system works in the deterioration of good govern-
ment and the real destruction of the rule of the
people. In the first place, the ends for which
each party now exists are fictitious, meaningless,
or positively hurtful. Neither great party stirs
the slightest sense of genuine chivalry or patriot-
ism among its voters. The one intent is to keep
the ofifices and to exclude the men of the opposite
party. Grant freely that many good men are
doubtless persuaded that the welfare of the coun-
try rests in the triumph of their own party. So
much the more the misfortune, if it be thought
possible that the shifting of a majority from one
party name to the other will ruin the nation. To
believe this is to distrust popular government.
The party system itself is at fault, if the mere
change of administration from the foremost men
of one party to the foremost men of the other,
threatens the business of the country !

Moreover, the vast partisan machinery in vogue
almost wholly takes away from the people the
liberty of choice. They may not have such can-
didates as they please, but only such as the

202 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

machine offers them. The party organization,
which was first intended merely for national pur-
poses, has proceeded to seize upon every state
and municipal government likewise. It is not
enough to vote for a Republican or a Democratic
congressman, but we must have partisan legislators
and aldermen. The party machines fatten on
city offices, educate the young voters to become
spoilsmen, and falsify the whole system of govern-
ment at the fountain head.

/ Partisan government in each state capital ham-
pers the free rule of the people of the cities and
towns. It makes special laws interfering with
, their liberty.- It requires New York or Boston or
Chicago to go to the legislature for measures of
reform or relief, which the people of the city
ought to be enabled in their capacity as free men
to vote for themselves. Each Republican legisla-
ture is jealous of the freedom of a Democratic city,
and each Democratic city in a Republican state
suspects the policy of its state government.

All legislative action becomes involved in parti-
san politics. Measures for the good of the people
cannot be considered frankly on their merits, but
as related in each case to the party interests, to
the winning of a prospective election, to the put-

THE PARTY SYSTEM 203

ting the opposite party '*in a hole." Men are
marshalled by the party whips to vote together,
who do not honestly think together. Men are
constrained by the caucus to approve legislation
which they do not believe in. Not the majority,
but a scheming minority, actually manages to rule.

The party system works injustice to honest
minorities, to the extent of the practical disfran-
chisement of thousands of voters. Thus the
Democrats of Maine and the Republicans of the
Southern states have scarcely enjoyed the possibil-
ity of the exercise of poHtical power for a genera-
tion. So with all smaller parties, which may on
occasion offer some new political program, as,
for example, the Prohibitionists, the Populists, the
Socialists. So with independent citizens every-
where, who can sometimes only make their silent
protest by withholding their vote from either one
of '* two evils."

As we have already seen, the real democracy
needs the representation of all sorts and conditions
of men. It wants to hear in its legislative halls
the expression of the desires and the needs of all
its citizens. No more weighty charge can be '
made against the two ruling parties than that, in as
enlightened a state as Massachusetts, they will not

204 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

permit so much as the experiment of proportional
representation. The party managers know that
this fair and simple step in the direction of democ-
racy, thus immediately allowing a multitude of
disfranchised voters to regain their just share of
poHtical power, would be the death blow to the
l^^arty ** machine."

The need of a democracy is that it shall employ
its best, wisest, and most public-spirited citizens.
There are some such men in almost every com-
munity who are naturally fitted by their courage,
their independence, and their humanity for admi-
rable political service. There is always a legitimate
" aristocratic " element within the true democracy.
It is not an aristocracy of family, or birth, or
wealth, or even education. It is open to the chil-
dren of the poorest. It consists of the men and
women who possess the gift of leadership. John
Mitchell, for exaimple, the head of the coal miners'
union, is such a natural leader. The best democ-
racy enjoys the service, the counsel, and the leader-
ship of its best citizens. This is the true and per-
petual meaning of "aristocracy," a word which
means the rule or management of the best men.
What good democrat, the man of the people, wishes
inefficient, mediocre, and corrupt service ? The

THE PARTY SYSTEM 205

worst danger to democracy lies in the ignorance
and apathy which rest content with scheming and
selfish leadership.

The party system works subtly to degrade and
deprave popular leadership. The question may
almost never be asked : Who can best serve this
constituency, that is, all the people in the city, or
the district ? Who can serve most ably the inter-
ests of the nation ? The party question becomes :
Who is the most available candidate to win the
election ? Who is the most active partisan ?
Availability may mean exceptional use of money,
or it may mean an easy conscience, a readiness to
make compromises, and an unscrupulous freedom
to change one's political principles to order. The
successful party leader must consent to eat his
** peck of dirt." ** Yes," as one of them said to
his neighbor, " I will eat a bushel if necessary."
Partisan success is to capture votes, whereas real
political success is to add to the common welfare.

The mischief is not merely that able and coura-
geous men, who will stoop to eat no dirt, who will
bend the knee to no ringster or " boss " or plotting
corporation, are set aside from public service.
The worst mischief is that the youth are trained
to false public standards. They are taught not to

206 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

act as free men, but to truckle and sell their souls.
The party management, by creating an unworthy
demand, tends to develop the wrong type of supply.
The party system thus boldly strikes at, or subtly
poisons, our public education. Partisanship has
even invaded the common school system, has
reduced the high office of teacher to the level of
patronage, and levied political assessments upon
the small salaries of its educators.

The rich and the educated are in the habit of
obtaining the services of lawyers, physicians, archi-
tects, and artists, wherever these happen to reside.
Intelligent people are bound to have the best of
everything. The people ought to have the same
freedom to find their public advisers and servants,
and specially their legislators. The people of
Great Britain have reserved this inestimable privi-
lege. Any constituency in the United Kingdom
may elect a John Bright or a John Burns, as long
as he lives in the empire. It is no matter in what
little German town an able mayor resides ; Ham-
burg or Berlin may choose him, if either likes. The
American partisan system has practically abro-
gated this natural right of the people. Under the
name of a false democracy, the local politicians of
the party in power divide among themselves, with-

THE PARTY SYSTEM 20/

out regard to fitness, those offices on the thorough
administration of which the pubHc welfare
depends. In no constituency are we allowed to
seek a man of national reputation or ability to
represent us in Congress, unless he resides in our
district. The ablest men in the country largely
reside in cities ; the country districts suffer corre-
spondingly by this steady drain away from them of
their young men, whom they cannot, under the
party system, employ in their highest public
service.

We have in the United States an excessive num-
ber of elective offices and a needless frequency of
elections. The partisan system complicates and
exaggerates this evil. The printed ballot in many
cases is merely a baffling list of names of unknown
persons. No reasonable choice is possible to
voters who must p'ass upon the merits of scores of
candidates.

It is no part of the democratic theory that
all officers must be directly chosen by the
people. A method suitable for a small township,
where all the citizens know one another, may be
eminently unsuitable to the needs of a great city
or a state. The spirit of the democracy merely
requires that the people shall be able to secure

208 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

efficient service, and promptly to dismiss negligent
public servants. For this end a large proportion
of the offices should evidently be filled by appoint-
ment, through properly safeguarded civil-service
methods. As soon as we learn to rid ourselves of
the bondage of partisanship, every election will be
a practical command on the part of the people to
their higher officials to choose their assistants in
the interest of all, and not of a part.

The essential condition of wise and considerate
public conduct is free discussion in open public
meeting. The town government at its best forced
upon all the people attention to their common
business. The people of a city ought to discuss
together their common concerns no less than the
citizens of a town. The party system has acted
largely to render this method of open discussion
impossible. The voters of the rival parties rarely
meet to discuss the questions at issue before them.
They are marshalled into separate caucuses;
public discussion has mostly ceased ; many men
hear their own partisan leaders and no others ;
they read only their own partisan papers. The
need in a democratic system is that all kinds and
conditions of men should meet and know one
another's thought, discover their common bonds

THE PARTY SYSTEM 209

of sympathy, and recognize their community of
business interests. We shall never solve the
problem of the democratic government of our
cities till we learn to meet, not as partisans, but
as fellow-citizens, by wards or by precincts of
wards, after the fashion of the " town-meeting," to
discuss our common interests. What could be
more reasonable or humane or democratic than
this simple proposition ?

The party system ties the hands of the bravest
President who could be elected under it. The
President must take nominations for important
offices from infamous machine politicians. Wash-
ington or Jefferson could be the President of the
whole people. But the party system makes Mr.
Roosevelt the President of the party of the protec-
tive tariff.

We have called attention to the vast and cen-
tralized power which is vested in the hands of
the President of the United States. The party
system worked to make this vast extension of
authority possible. The calmer opinion and sen-
timent of the people lacked clear and independent
expression in the houses of Congress. So patri-
otic a senator as George F. Hoar was not quite
free to disregard party interests and represent the

210 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

welfare of the whole people. Thus in the highest
places the party caucus, with its standing menace
against individual liberty, compels men against
their judgment to "back "the acts of the party
chief in the White House.

The party system works in every direction to
create and intensify needless antagonisms among
men who ought to act together. The difference
of opinion between men upon the party ques-
tion of a protective tariff hardly touches more
than a point in most men's lives. This promi-
nent partisan issue is hardly a vital question at
all with milHons of Americans. Yet it is used
as a leverage to separate men permanently into
hostile and suspicious camps. The partisan spirit
always thus draws its artificial lines of cleavage
between men who have otherwise no natural
reasons to quarrel or oppose each other. The
spirit of democracy, as we have seen, is essen-
tially union, good will, and cooperation. The first
party question is : How can we beat the other
party .'* This is the survival of barbarism. The
first democratic question is : How can we best act
together for our common welfare ? The common
interests in which all citizens need wise counsel
and admirable service are generally ten times more

THE PARTY SYSTEM 211

important than any sectional or partisan interests
which divide them. The party system subordi-
nates these common interests to the minor con-
cerns of a minority or a faction. The people who
go to the national government for assistance to
their schemes already enjoy an immoderate share
of public legislation. While the party platform
may seem to threaten the " trusts," yet the men
behind the trusts, with their powerful attorneys
and lobbies, shape and interpret the action of the
government.

It may be asked : What else would you have if
the two great time-honored parties were to disap-
pear ? Would not other parties at once take their
vacant place .-* The fact is, that there are various
issues and vital interests before a modern nation.
These issues do not naturally arrange themselves
under two heads. They fall into groups. Some
of the people want changes or reform in the tariff.
Some wish to check the growth of military expen-
diture. Some believe that the nation can effect
reform in the abuses of the alcoholic drinks.
Some desire certain changes in the direction of
socialism. Some aim at a more comprehensive
scheme of national aid to education. The vast
majority of the people only want honest and

212 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

economical administration. They hardly know
or care what the government at Washington is
about, provided it does not disturb them. Mean-
while the designs and the ideals of various groups
of men, who for selfish or disinterested motives
wish to make use of the national government, do
not generally have any connection with the more
pressing necessities of local or state government.
The municipal issues, which touch the largest part
of each man's burden of taxation, are apt to be
as free of relation to national politics as of the
politics of Europe or India.

The natural plan of carrying on the government
would seem to be the same for the nation or the
state, as it is for a well-ordered New England
town. For the most part the citizens would
naturally choose simply the most trustworthy men
and keep them in office as long as they remained
worthy of trust. They would judge that a man
of common sense and integrity, whether he be-
lieved in free trade or protection, would make a
better congressman than a man who agreed with
the electors on a theory of protection, and lacked
wisdom, honesty, or courage.

As in a town, so on occasion national groups
and parties would arise and combine over particu-

THE PARTY SYSTEM 213

lar issues, and disappear as soon as the purpose
for which they had come into being had been
reached. Clubs and societies would be formed with
reference to important matters of possible legisla-
tion. They would naturally seek to find repre-
sentation in Congress. Whether they were wise
or foolish, they would deserve to obtain a respect-
ful hearing and in reasonable proportion to the
number of the people who favored them. The
Congress in general would be composed of men
who would represent all the different interests
of the people. They would generally agree in
seeking to secure the best service of the whole
people, while individuals among them, standing
for the urgency of groups and special strata of
public opinion, would be free to exercise such
influences as they could command. The President
and his cabinet themselves would usually, unless
in a period of some exceptional and abnormal
excitement, represent and act for the whole
people, and not for a bare moiety of them. It
would be possible in theory, as it is actually now
in fact, for these associates to enjoy wide differ-
ences of political opinion, only that the nation
would have the benefit, as it does not freely
have now, of frank expression and discussion of

214 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

such differences in cabinet council. There is
scarcely an opinion held by intelligent men that
ought to prevent a cabinet from working harmoni-
ously together in the effective performance of
national duties.

It is said by the partisan that the group system
of government, as in France and Germany, works
ill and lends itself to vicious log-rolling and to the
control of government by mere minorities holding
the temporary balance of power. What works ill,
we reply, is the spirit of selfishness and injustice,
wherever you find it. What can you say to the
detriment of the present bipartisan system more
damnatory than the notorious impression that, from
the President of the United States down, through-
out both houses of Congress, and including the
great cabinet officers, there is not a man pledged
or quite free to serve the welfare of the people of
the United States ! We say this with personal
respect for a great many of the men in command.
Yet who of them is free enough not to ask : What
does the party demand of me ? And this too
when the party does not even mean a majority of
the people, but rather a caucus of Congress, or a
national committee, or the pressure of partisan
politicians, or even of overgrown capitalists.

THE PARTY SYSTEM 21 5

The truth is, we are only experimenting at the
beginnings of the working of real democracy.
Party government no more deserves the name of
democracy than does a constitutional monarchy.
The very nature of democracy, as a method of
humane political cooperation for great common
ends, has yet to be preached, to leaders and to
people, in school and churches, in cities and out on
the farms.

XVIII

THE RULE OF THE CITIES

The seamy side of American civilization is to be
seen in the cities. The underworld of low life is
close to the most dazzling wealth and luxury. Over
a hundred millions of dollars a year in the single
city of New York goes for civic expense, while
the overcrowding, the poverty, the vice, and the
wretchedness of the great city goes on almost un-
abated. An army of police stand ready to make
arrests and to hurry their victims away to great
station-houses. A huge machinery of so-called
justice is provided to dispose of offenders against
the laws. But the conditions which make crime
continue. What holds true in one city is substan-
tially the same in all cities. Nowhere yet have
the people of the great towns learned how to bring
the forces of their wealth and intelligence to bear
so as to make human life clean, wholesome, sweet,
and happy.

If the men of our cities had wished to give dis-
cipline in public affairs to the boys of the grammar

ai6

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 217

schools and had turned over the entire manage-
ment of their towns to the older boys, they could
scarcely have fared worse in waste and folly, and
not nearly so ill in corruption and fraud, as they
have actually fared in many of the centres of
American civilization. If the men had given their
whole attention to making money and had resigned
civic business to the women, the women could
hardly have contrived to take the onerous respon-
sibility of public housekeeping with so little seri-
ousness and so slender regard for human comfort
and welfare as the men have generally shown.

Read the lists of men serving on American city
councils and passing upon the expenditure of a
total revenue sufficient to administer an empire;
read the lists of men who have the charge of the
school systems involving the welfare of hosts of
little children ; study the antecedents, the character,
and the education of men occupying administrative
places in the care of streets, public grounds, prisons,
and hospitals. You will find the names of men
who would not be trusted by their neighbors to
serve as trustees or executors of the smallest es-
tate. You will discover men who have had their
education as bartenders or habitual idlers. You
will find men put at the head of great departments

2l8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of public business on account of their success in
marshalling voters to the polls. If our cities were
to advertise for men who could waste and squan-
der the largest amount of public money, we should
procure the very men whom we now place in
positions of honor, trust, and responsibility. So
cruelly is democracy wounded in the house of its
friends.

It is no fairer to blame democracy for civic mis-
rule than it would be to blame religion. As well
complain of democracy that our cities suffer from
typhoid fever or pneumonia, as complain because
they suffer from corrupt and incompetent officials.
Men suffer from these evils under all systems of
government. Men will cease to suffer from these
troubles only so far and so fast as they learn to
care for and to seek the public health and virtue
with the same diligence which they use now in
caring for and seeking dollars, the semblance of
value.

Let us try to discover what special reasons there
may be why we in the United States fall behind
other countries, less democratic than we are, in the
management of our cities. One great reason,
doubtless, is in the newness of our cities, in their
rapid growth, in the heterogeneousness of their

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 219

population, and particularly in the absence among
us of any framework of tradition to guard the
new civic life, while it has been taking on its vast
growth in size and responsibility.

Thus in a European city, Glasgow or Berlin, one
sees everywhere present in the life of the modern
city the survival of habits, forms and institutions
which have held over from the more oligarchic
regime of the earlier time. The leading merchants
and thinkers of the city are still looked to as the
leaders of municipal enterprises. The forms are
still preserved which make it easy and natural to
bring forward men of ability and character and to
use them in the public service.

Grant that the cities of Europe are all headed
toward full democracy ; their movement has been
a growth, or development, and not a revolution.
Moreover, the general movement seems to have
left European cities larger home rule and more
civic freedom to work out their own problems than
the somewhat meddlesome state governments in
America have allowed. City politics in Europe
tend to be quite as clean as national politics; in
America city politics may be far worse than na-
tional politics. In Europe the national govern-
ment tends to keep the cities on a decent level ; in

220 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the United States local politics have become means
of undermining the political health of the whole
nation.

Again, in discountenancing aristocracy, we in
America have suddenly lost to a large degree the
services of a kind of public men, without the like
of whom no people can long survive. We mean
men of the character of Lord Aberdeen and Wel-
lington, fearless of popular clamor, trained like
watch-dogs to serve the state without a thought of
personal profit. The aristocrat at his best is a
man of honor. Such a man makes a better mayor
or superintendent of streets than the most effusive
democrat who is only in office for what he can get.
A people pervaded with the spirit of commer-
cialism are trying the experiment of government
by commercialism. The cities suffer most, because
they offer so many rich fields for vulgar exploitation.
** Graft " is everywhere at work, vitiating almost
every kind of business. It is not strange that we
fail as yet to learn that civic democracy requires
and deserves, not less, but more, fidelity, thorough-
ness, capacity, and disinterestedness than any
other form of municipal government.

It should be remarked that the suddenness of
the transition from town and other local methods

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 221

of government into various forms of city charters
has been most unfortunate. Here again one notes
not normal development, but simple revolution.
Our signal failure to govern our cities "in compari-
son with foreign experience " is partly to be traced
to this fact.

In an old-fashioned town government the people
actually met, discussed their affairs, and appointed
their various committees to carry out their will.
No scheme ever worked better than this. Mean-
while the town grows populous and the town-meet-
ings become unwieldy. Why not use our experience
to alter or modify our excellent system of town
government.? If, for example, a body of a thou-
sand voters makes twice too large a town-meeting
to do business effectively, and four hundred or
five hundred voters work admirably together, why
should we not take measures to form a town coun-
cil of the smaller number ? Draw town councillors,
if you please, once a year, as we draw jurors, one
to so many voters. Or, let each group of three, or
a dozen, or a hundred neighbors choose which of
its members shall sit in the town council. Give
us each and all the opportunity freely to make our
influence and our will felt in the affairs of our
town. Give each electing group the opportunity,

222 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

as often as we desire, to hear our own delegate,
to instruct him, to recall him, to replace him. All
towns up to a population of one hundred and fifty
thousand would seem to be manageable, with the
proper modifications touching the various execu-
tive departments, upon lines growing naturally
out of the experience of local democracy.

On the contrary, we have actually thrown our
experience to the winds, and have set up a brand-
new institution under the name of a city govern-
ment. We did not even begin by asking the
original question : What sort of a management
will best serve the civic interests of a large popu-
lation ? We are only slowly returning to this pri-
mary question after wandering for nearly one
hundred years. We are at last learning to frame
an occasional city charter with reference to the
facts and the real demands of the people. For
the most part indeed we went across the sea, and
we took an ancient model upon which to build
democratic cities .in America. We set up a little
king, the mayor, with a House of Lords, the
aldermen, and a House of Commons, the council.
Numerous cities established a system of municipal
government almost as elaborate as if they were
going to rule Great Britain !

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 223

However voters may choose to continue to play
the perilous game of national party politics, no one
can make the slightest argument for the admission
of national politics into the administration of cities.
There is not the most remote connection between
the fitness of a man as a mayor or alderman, and
his opinions upon the policy of free trade, or naval
expansion, or colonies in the South Seas. The
management of a modern city is essentially a great
business, requiring the peculiar qualities — namely,
integrity, faithfulness, efficiency, watchful care for
economy, and good temper — which everywhere
bring business success. There can be no con-
troversy on this point. What, then, shall we say
of the apathy and stupidity of the American
people in giving up the control of the splendid
revenues of their cities, to be made the prizes of
partisan and factional conflict for the most un-
scrupulous demagogues and their henchmen ? All
other reasons for the failure of municipal govern-
ment in the United States may be set aside in
comparison with the anomaly of trying to carry
on the practical business of great corporations by
the use of the party machinery set up to win votes
in the quadrennial national elections ! No device
could be more mischievous for dividing the men

224 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

and nullifying the forces that naturally work to-
gether to make good government.

Observe now the difficulties in which the aver-
age voter is involved at a city election. He goes
to the polls a mere unit, not to say a cipher,
among a multitude of other units. Even under
the Australian system and in the voting booth, his
isolation from other men is emphasized. If he has
attended a caucus preliminary to the election, he
has probably done nothing more there than he
does at the polls. He votes in silence. He has
had no real and honest conference or consultation
with others. He has been in no way enlightened
as to the issues before him as a voter. Is the
voter a party man ? If so, he is nearly certain to
be voting in the dark. There is no act of faith
•more bHnd in the most superstitious religion than
to trust the party machine and act as one is bidden
in a great city election.

The voter examines his ballot. He is sure to
be bewildered by the number of strange names.
It is a mere chance if he really knows one man
out of the scores of candidates for councilmen,
school committee, and other offices. It is a very
exceptional elector who can be adequately in-
formed of the fitness of a sufficient number of

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 225

these strangers, to fill out his ticket. This is not
an honest method of election. It is more like
gambling, the dice being loaded in advance by
men who superintend every election in their own
interests.

The truth is that no voter is prepared, or can
be prepared, to pass judgment upon so compli-
cated a problem as the mongrel list of names pre-
sented to him upon the official ballot in most
American city elections. No business man would
dream of obliging himself to turn out once a year
all the more experienced men from the most im-
portant places in his counting-room or factory,
and to fill their offices by a hasty choice of dozens
of unknown applicants — especially applicants
who have put themselves forward in the hope of
getting an easy berth and good pay.

It has been suggested as a remedy for the
prevalent civic anarchy, to strengthen the author-
ity of the mayor. Make the mayor responsible for
the good conduct of the city; give him, under
civil service rules, large power of appointment and
removal of his subordinates, of the superintend-
ents of the various departments, of the school
committee, of the assessors, and the rest. Let the
heads of the departments constitute an advisory

226 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

board or working council, like the cabinet of the
President of the United States. Give the mayor
then a long enough term to make his mark.
Watch him and be ready to retire him, or to re-
elect him, as he deserves. Thus the people
would have one capable man, devoted to their
welfare, and subject to their approval. The city
government would thus be a sort of temporary
monarchy, tempered perhaps by the use of the
referendum and the liberty of the people to veto
such measures or appointments as they might not
approve.

If the people of a city must act forever as units,
some such plan as this would seem to be sane. It
could hardly involve greater risk of misrule than
we run now. It would be an intelligent and con-
sistent method of government ; it would fix re-
sponsibility; it would make a city election, and
every needful referendum consequent upon it,
level with the comprehension of all the people.
Each election would also tend to become, as elec-
tions now necessarily fail to be, a process in the
political education of the people. Neither would
such a plan be less democratic, except in appear-
ance, than the blind and baffling methods which
to-day in every city deceive people by fictitious

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 22/

popular names, while they are always manipulated
to give the designing few the power over the
purses and the interests of the many.

It must always be remembered that popular
government does not essentially consist in the
number of the officials who must be elected by
the votes of the people. In imperial Rome the
people still kept the forms of the republic. The
forms of democracy are used in Mexico. But the
essence of democratic government is that when
the people vote, they are free to express and to
carry out their intelligent will. No one pretends
that we are free to express our intelligent will in
casting a blanket ballot, made out for us by a
group of politicians and crowded with unknown
names. We should come actually nearer to the
expression of our will by committing the appoint-
ment of the most of our officials to a trusted mayor,
or to a carefully chosen and somewhat permanent
council of heads of departments, than by voting in
ignorance as we mostly do now.

It must have already become evident that the
chief root of the trouble in the control of our
American cities is the want of true democracy.
We have agreed that democracy is essentially a
spirit of cooperation. The people of a new city

228 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

are unfortunately strangers to one another. It
is an immense lesson to learn to act together for
common ends. The differences in race, language,
and religion in an American town somewhat in-
crease the natural difficulty of civic cooperation.
Nevertheless, the task is before us ; it is not im-
possible ; it is the one way that promises large
success. It rests upon the facts and the needs of
human nature. Already the people of great cities,
as for example in Chicago, and at last in Philadel-
phia, have begun to show signs of their susceptibil-
ity to the appeal to the common civic interests for
the good of the whole people.

The origin of the modern democratic ideal was
in the actual and natural working of the town
government, especially in New England. The
clew to success in the management of our cities
lies in retracing our way to the starting-point of
good local government. The people of a town
meet from time to time to consider and act to-
gether. The reference of any new business to
the will of the people is always open. The people
see and hear the men who are to take charge of
their affairs.

Good, it is said, but this is impossible for the
people of a great city. Let us take measures to

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 229

render it possible for them. For their interests
are not relatively less important, but far more
weighty, than the affairs of the town. The voters
of a city are already accustomed to be divided into
wards or into voting precincts. But they never or
rarely meet, even in their own halls ; they scarcely
know each other as fellow-voters. The only meet-
ings are partisan, thus dividing the very men who
ought to confer and act together. The voters may
not even see those who aspire to be their represen-
tatives. Suppose now that we make it a necessary
preliminary part of every city election that the
voters attend award or precinct *' town-meeting,"
where candidates can be openly nominated ; where
also candidates for the city council, for example,
shall be present and give an account of themselves;
where the general issues of the election shall be
set forth, with such matters as specially concern
each locality or ward ; where any information can
be promptly had to satisfy the questions of citizens
touching the conduct of the city ; where necessary
discussions can be held upon any referendum be-
fore the people ; and where instructions can be
voted to guide the representatives of the district in
their action at the city hall. Here will be a natu-
ral opportunity for the citizens of a ward to learn

230 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to know each other and to act together. It will be
an opportunity for men of ideas and public spirit
to make their influence felt. It will be an oppor-
tunity also for the demagogue, but he will have to
appear openly, and the means to defeat him will
be equally open.

No one can say that some such method of civic
cooperation is not worth while ; for you can hardly
have real democracy without it. No one can say
that it would be asking too much time and interest
of the citizen. For what purpose could he more
fairly be asked to spend an occasional evening in
the course of a year ? It is hard to see in what
way he could do more to help further the public
interests as well as the political education of the
people.

Let us also suppose that we make it for the
personal interest of each voter not to neglect the
ward " town -meeting." Let us drop from the list
of registered voters any citizen who may fail to be
present twice in succession, either at an actual
election, or at the meeting preliminary to an elec-
tion ; let us require a moderate registration fee
for replacing a voter's name upon the list, and
double the fee if he is obliged to register a second
time within two years.

THE RULE OF THE CITIES 23 1

It would seem also fair that a man should be
allowed to register (though without voting power)
for the civic meetings, not only of the precinct
where he dwells, but also where he works or does
business. A man ought to have at least a voice
in the discussion of the affairs of the locality
where his working interests lie.

It is not enough to secure the empty names of
popular institutions. It is not enough to go
through the form of political activity by throwing
a ballot into a box. It is necessary that our insti-
tutions, our methods, and our political machinery
shall express our intelligence and serve to develop
our civic life. It is necessary that men shall vote,
not as units, or as partisans, but cooperatively as
fellow-citizens. It is necessary to appeal again
and again to the public spirit and the common
sense of the voters. The appeal should always be
made over a simple issue, as between a demagogue
and a true man, or a plain Yes or No over a public
measure, the granting or refusal of a franchise, or
the incurring of public indebtedness. Every such
appeal once talked out, with its friends or oppo-
nents openly heard, is a discipline in political life,
not for the few only, but for the many. It is also
a method of developing manhood.

232 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The mere fact that means are freely offered
to the people to question officials and exercise
authority over them is itself a guard against the
abuse and corruption of government. Let the
city council know that they must give the people
a referendum on any dubious legislation ; let them
know that purchasable representatives are liable
to be called to face direct questions in open
"town-meeting," and to be summarily retired
from office; let them be committed to a general
policy of trusting the people instead of throwing
dust in their eyes. When such conditions hold,
there will be the least necessity for distrusting or
reversing the action of the representatives of the
people ; for they will be accustomed to work
harmoniously with their constituents and will take
pleasure in furthering the common welfare. Con-
cede that this ideal is costly, and will demand a
long struggle. Nevertheless the realization of the
vision of the true city will be worth all that it
costs. The effort to attain it is as good work as
any man can do.

XIX

THE PROBLEM OF WAR

We have called attention incidentally to the
marked development of mankind out of the mili-
tary into the industrial regime. But men are still
educated into and hypnotized by the traditional
view of a military society ; they continue to insist
upon war as the normal condition of the world ;
ancient usages and abuses die hard. Too many
men are still under arms in what is called Chris-
tendom, and too many military and naval officers
are interested in the maintenance of war establish-
ments, to make it safe to predict how soon the
gates of the temple of Janus will finally be closed.
It therefore becomes a practical question to deter-
mine what the bearing of the spirit of democracy
is upon the international policy of a popular
government.

The problem with the United States is not that
of Italy or France, surrounded on every side by
threatening fortresses. The position of the United
States is unique. We hold the opportunity to give

233

234 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the world a majestic object-lesson of the behavior
of an advanced democratic people in a new era of
history. It is in the power of the United States
to gain the headway of centuries in establishing
peace and civilized order. On the other hand, the
peril is that the United States may fall under the
control of the forces that make for moral inertia,
and may so serve to delay the very era of popular
welfare to which our institutions are consecrated.
War is the great enemy of the democracy. The
men who despise the people are always the willing
friends of war.

We have admitted a principle that would theo-
retically justify possible war. We have made a
clear distinction between the use of force and the
use of hate, between brutal violence and the' hurt
or pain, akin to surgery, directed by a wise and
merciful intelligence. Few modern men would
probably deny the rightfulness of the use of mili-
tary force in repelling a foreign invasion and
asserting national freedom. We may imagine
barbarian hordes descending upon our shores for
plunder or conquest. Who would stand idly by
and see the ruin of civilization ?

What is the use, however, of imagining a state
of the world out of which we have happily

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 235

passed, or of fancying what we ought to do with
Old World perils ? The questions touching the
righteousness of war in our day are not the same
questions as in the time of Charlemagne or Philip
of Spain, as the question of the use of one's fists
to settle a grievance is not the same question
in the case of the grown man as it is with the
unformed schoolboy. We face new conditions;
we have sight of new ideals. The more humane
men become, the more revolting war is. It is
more ruinous than it ever has been. The world
is bound so closely in the bonds of international
commerce and travel, that war in one point threat-
ens loss everywhere. It is like fire in a city; it
menaces the whole of society. Less and less can
the world afford to permit it.

The fact is that war, like crime or disease,
is an anomaly in modern civilization. Here is
the world-wide difference between the theories
of ancient and of modern life. In ancient life
war was an habitual part of the business of the
nation. The regular work of government was
to be ready to slay men. The old habit was to
look on foreign peoples as natural enemies. The
democratic habit is to see natural friends in all
nations. This is the underlying thought of our

236 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

democracy. Whereas the governments in the
old times actually kept on hand the war-engen-
dering microbes of hate, jealousy, envy, suspicion,
inhumanity, and war therefore always threat-
ened to break out, Hke the plague in Bombay, it
is the first duty of a modern state to get rid of
these evil microbes. The great objection to the
support of a huge military and naval establish-
ment is not their cost, nor the immediate peril of
our liberties, but the established fact, that the
subtle germs of war, pride, antagonism, arrogance,
jealousy, thrive in the substance of a great war
department, as the bacilli of consumption thrive
and multiply in a deposit of abnormal animal
tissues.

Let us frankly consider certain varieties of
possible war, with reference, not to imaginary prob-
lems, or to the issues of earlier times, but to the
actual conditions which we see in our world of
to-day. We may rule out altogether, so far as
we in the United States are concerned, the neces-
sity of war with a superior power, as, for example,
for the defence of liberty. We have even become
so sure of our freedom as to have lost sympathy
with the struggles of other peoples for the free-
dom which we enjoy. The average American's

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 237

advice to Finns, Armenians, or Hindus would
probably be the same as we practically give to
Filipinos, namely, not to do as our fathers did,
and make war to the death for the right of self-
government, but to be patient and await the slow
and sure constitutional changes which are bound to
come under every form of modern administration.

Whereas Americans in the flood-tide of their
enthusiasm for popular rights once hailed Kossuth
and Garibaldi as heroes, they now distrust the
ability of every people who live under a foreign
sovereignty to manage their own affairs. One
might suspect that the majority of our nation to-
day had descended from a Tory pedigree. Or,
were the Tories of our Revolutionary age right
in their opinion that there was no just cause for
revolution and war against England ? And is it
possible, as we now look back coolly upon the
slight imperial impositions of George III, that
America only needed patience and the firm press-
ure of growing public opinion to have obtained
without bloodshed all that Canada and Australia
enjoy to-day ?

Moreover, we have passed, we hope forever,
though at vast cost, upon the problem of revolu-
tionary secession from our union of states. No

238 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

one fears civil war. Or, if bitter voices are some-
times raised in prediction of some coming crisis of
industrial revolution, we ought by this time to
know the one way certain to avert the approach
of mischief ; namely, to do justice in public and
private, to develop a more generous humanity, and
to foster the growth of the democratic spirit. There
is in fact no subject, as there was in the days of
slavery, which threatens seriously to afford the
material of civil war. There are quite constitu-
tional means for winning every change or reform
which the body of the people call for.

We have mainly to consider what possibility of
righteous war there is with other equal and sover-
eign nations. Let us count upon the fingers of
one hand all the nations with which the United
States is likely to have any pretext for a bloody
quarrel.

First of these nations is England, our own
mother country. Through her colonial possessions
she is our nearest neighbor.^ For the width of
the continent her Canadian border marches with
ours. We have no better or more friendly neigh-
bor. Our laws, institutions, and customs are with
slight differences substantially the same. Our
people generally profess forms of the same religion.

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 239

A thousand international links bind us more
closely every day. For any thoughtful and humane
mind war with England is too terrible and prepos-
terous to contemplate. It would be- the straight
and almost contemptuous denial of the Christianity
of a hundred thousand churches.

For what national interest could war with Eng-
land be entered upon ? Not for any possible
pecuniary gain to either nation. Not for the
acquisition of territory. There is not even the
slightest boundary question anywhere in sight.
There is no piece of land upon the earth whose
lawful sovereignty stands in doubt that is worth
fighting about for either nation. The vast mer-
cantile and industrial interests of both nations are
overwhelmingly against war. The sympathies of
the great mass of the plain people of both nations
are equally against it.

Must we then consider the possibility of war
with England over some fancied insult or question
of national honor ? It is certain that the represen-
tative men of both nations have no sHghtest dispo-
sition to insult or prejudice or injure the people of
the other nation. There has been immense gain
in this respect in fifty years on both sides of the
ocean.

240 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

What now is national honor ? It is not honor
to be hunting for imaginary insult ; it is not honor
to look on one's neighbors with suspicion ; it is
not honor, worthy of civilized men, to be quick to
take up arms and to fight and kill. Revenge is not
honor. Is it not rather national honor to be
humane and friendly ? Is it not the part of the
strong nation, as of the strong man, to keep a cool
temper, to give and to expect justice, to maintain
sturdy good will to all ?

Where is any one going to find ground for fear
of war with our English brethren ? Must it be
over our cherished Monroe doctrine ? It is enough
for the moment to say that England has shown
remarkable willingness not to offend our sensitive-
ness on this point. Is it not time for both Eng-
land and the United States to agree, and to
establish their agreement by the most solemn
treaty possible, that under no circumstances will
they ever fight each other ; that for the future
they will seek the settlement of any grievance
that may arise between them by the pacific, honor-
able, and civilized methods of grown men, not
by the vain and unintelligent arbitrament of the
barbarian !

Can we discover any reason for the apprehen-

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 24 1

sion of war with the Republic of France ? Here
is a nation with which we have always had a tradi-
tion of friendship. An immense trade connects
the two countries. Hosts of American travellers
are" always enjoying French hospitality and admir-
ing French art, science, and scenery. In no part
of the world do American and French boundary
lines touch each other to furnish even the occasion
for a quarrel. The interests of both people are
growingly pacific and international. In no country
is there a stronger sentiment among its leaders in
favor of the peace of the world and against the
brutality of war than in France. May we not
safely say that, as regards the forty milHons of
Frenchmen, the United States does not require a
single company of soldiers, or as much as a gun-
boat, to defend us against national injury or
insult .-* In other words, we have no need to raise
the question of the rightfulness of a war with
France. Nothing but the most culpable folly
and perverseness in the administration of both
parties could allow a conflagration between them
to kindle.

Much the same must be said with reference to
the great and friendly empire of Germany. Mill-
ions of its people are among our most loyal citi-

242 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

zens. What good German, or what respectable
American, can think of war between the two
countries as anything less than wickedness ? We
have no boundary questions or issues between us
over the possession of territory. We respect each
other's national qualities. Americans go to Ger-
many for education. We are cousins by virtue of
the common sturdy Teutonic stock. Raze all our
fortresses to the ground, and there is nothing
justly belonging to the United States which the
most strenuous German war lord would dream of
seizing.

Grant that German officiaHsm and militarism
are still somewhat coarse and rude, as befits the
survival of an aristocratic regime. The only
reason for apprehension of this offensive milita-
rism is in the growth of an insolent and quite
un-American military and official caste among
ourselves.

There are trade rivalries between us, some one
suggests. And what is the proper settlement of
trade rivalries ? Does any trader or manufacturer
on either side of the ocean want to settle their
rivalries by the sword ? Only soldiers, and very
dull soldiers, think of carrying on trade by
force. The merchant and the manufacturer know

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 243

well enough that war ruins trade and brings indus-
tries into bankruptcy. It is said that trade follows
the flag ; it does not follow the battle-flag, but the
flag of peace. Trade follows the progress of civili-
zation, which war destroys. You can demonstrate
by figures that war ships are, like armies, a bur-
den of taxation upon the normal trade of the
world. There is not even the Old World excuse
that they safeguard the ocean from pirates. In
truth, even in the old days, trading ships took all
risks and ventures, and penetrated and explored
distant waters, where the ships of war only fol-
lowed them. It is insane to suppose that Germany
and America have any cause in their commercial
rivalry to threaten each other with war. Their
people simply do not want war. The growing
democratic spirit in both nations forbids the word
of ill omen.

What shall we say of the "Colossus of the
North " ? Where can any one find a reasonable
imaginary excuse for the United States to wage
war with Russia.'* The traditionary relations be-
tween the two countries have certainly always
been friendly. The willing sale of Alaska to the
United States emphasized the friendly intent of
the Russian government. The spheres of political

244 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

action of the two nations are as nearly distinct
as possible. A considerable trade binds the two
together and is sure to grow larger.

It is said that Russia is an empire, and her
rule tends to stamp out the individuality and
freedom of subject races. True, few Americans
could live under the Russian system; but Russia
has only done on a larger and a cruder scale
what America has begun to do in a more refined
way in the Philippine archipelago. Russia pro-
poses to civilize, educate, and unify wild and
heterogeneous peoples. Russia wants sea power,
as does America. Meanwhile Russia has been
learning a fearful lesson of the futility of despot-
ism. Daily the spirit of democracy, drawing all
men together, penetrates to every town of this
great empire. Men are reading modern books ;
plain people are asking questions ; new ideas are
in the Russian air. Russia is now an autocracy,
but the Russian people are already awaking from
this apathy and are being heard from ; popular
institutions are yet to come. Vast and profound
forces are at work which make for peace, and
specially with the liberty-loving people of the
United States.

There are those who raise their hands in fear

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 245

before the bogy of a " Yellow Terror. " But
sensible Americans, who have watched the growth
of Japan with friendly sympathy since the days
of Commodore Perry, will not be frightened be-
cause Japan has joined the "civilized powers."
The leaders of Japan, many of them educated
in American colleges, have never shown jealousy
or hostility against the people of the United
States. Neither nation wishes anything that
justly belongs to the other. The Japanese, ever
willing to adjust themselves to modern conditions,
are too intelligent to retrace their steps to barba-
rism and to set forth on an insane crusade to
conquer the world.

We have named every great power for fear
of a war with which the apprehensive or pessi-
mistic military faction advise us to build war
ships and prepare for possible trouble. We have
found good reasons in every case for expecting
permanent peace, without the menace of mischief
or insult from any of them. We have seen no
little cloud in the international horizon which
could give us decent reason for engaging in war
with any of them. Neither, beyond the great
powers named, is there a civilized nation in the
world with which we have any business to think

246 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of fighting. Not even Spain, though she might
feel natural resentment against us, is dreaming
of war. She is happily rid of perplexities and
burdens in the West Indies and in the East of
which we have relieved her. Is there left a
government on the earth with which we do not
and ought not to stand ready to adjudicate any
possible grievance by the means now provided
and sanctioned already by repeated use, through
the Hague tribunal ? A hasty act, it is said,
may precipitate war. With whom ? With Italy ?
With Austria ? The United States, we reply,
does not propose to accept the precipitate scratch-
ing of a match by a fool or a drunken man, as a
reason to embroil the world in flames. We in-
tend to put such a fire out before it can catch.
Let us sum up this chapter as follows : As
no true man expects in our day to fight with
another, and even when a grievance arises be-
tween them, each is willing to wait for the sense
of justice and honor in the other man to assert
itself, and at the worst each is ready to put his
case out to fair arbitrament, and needs no com-
pulsion to do whatever the arbiter or the court
bids, — so no civilized nation ought to fight for
its rights or honor with any other civilized peo-

THE PROBLEM OF WAR 247

pie ; so each ought to be ready to wait for just
arbitrament ; so at the worst neither should need
to be compelled to abide by the decision of a
reasonable tribunal. The more completely the
spirit of democracy underlies civilized govern-
ments, the more will this opinion tend to prevail.
Meanwhile already the United States doubt-
less holds this vantage ground among all nations,
that, by reason of her vast strength, she does
not need to go armed or to expect quarrels ; she
can afford to carry out her own ideals, since no
one seriously wishes to molest her. She can af-
ford to lead the world in the methods of peace-
able conduct, inasmuch as her power and her
dignity are above the reach of petty insult.

XX

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM

We come to the most momentous question of
modern times. It is the question of the relation
of the progressive nations to the backward and
barbarous races. Vast populations of the globe,
as in Africa, Asia, and South America, are not
half civilized. Around us also are nations styled
" civilized " — some of them as civilized as we are,
with gigantic armies and navies who are greedy
for the territory of those whom they deem " infe-
rior " peoples. Land hunger and the predatory
instinct still sway their action. Must we Ameri-
cans do as others are doing.? Must we take a
share in keeping the world in subjection to law
and order, that is, our law and our order ? More
concretely, the United States holds the Philippine
Islands by force and has a beginning of a hold in
Central America. We have set up, under the
name of the Monroe doctrine, a form of protec-
torate over the western hemisphere. It certainly
fosters our national pride to believe that we are

248

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 249

called by " Providence " to keep the peace of the
world, and at least for a time to tutor and educate
feeble foreign peoples.

We have already raised the question of the
admission of childish peoples to the exercise of
the suffrage. We have discovered the impossi-
bility of drawing any line to separate civilized
men from the unciviHzed. We have seen that
men are generally only learners as yet in respect
to true civiHzation. The safe leaders and voters
are the men of good will, not necessarily the men
of education and property. We have laid down
the broad principle that men must treat each other
as men. Any other course is anomalous and
demonstrably leads straight to mischief. You can
hardly afford to talk down, even to children. You
cannot talk down to men, you cannot treat them
as inferiors, you cannot force them to go your
way. You cannot treat savages as inferiors
and not stir their suspicion, their resentment, and
their hostility. We have seen that even in the
treatment of criminals you presuppose an appeal
to men's innate sense of justice and assume at
least, as in the case of the sick, that they must
themselves in their hearts approve your course
toward them. The most rigorous and summary

250 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

treatment, dictated on occasion by the necessities
of life and death, must still be free of arrogance
or contempt.

The same general principles serve to answer
our questions about the relations of the more
advanced with the backward nations. Strange
and difficult anomalies certainly arise in the course
of these relations. Pirates cannot be suffered to
terrorize the seas. The United States long ago
agreed with other nations in the international duty
to suppress the slave trade. Indians and other
barbarians cannot be allowed to go upon the war
path. No mass of argument and no large force
of armies and navies are necessary to enforce
these simple assertions in behalf of the order
of the world. Unfortunately, to a large extent
savage depredations have notoriously been pro-
voked by the greed and the oppression of the so-
called superior peoples. The reasonable methods
of John Eliot and William Penn, if supplemented
by one quarter of the cost of Indian police, ex-
pended in such education as the Hampton school
gives, would have made police and soldiery by this
time almost needless. The methods of Living-
stone and of Bishop Patteson in the South Seas, if
uninterrupted by the white men's liquor and gurl«

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 25 1

powder, would have left no necessity or excuse for
the partition of Africa, or for the seizure of the
islands in the Pacific, — even to protect them
from seizure by other missionary nations ! So far,
at least, the experiment of taking over ** native
races" for the welfare of civilization has been
one of the saddest blots upon the fame of the
great powers concerned in the enterprise. The
story of Spain and the people of the West Indies,
the story of England and the Zulus, the story
of Belgium and the Congo territory, the story of
Holland and the people of Java, the story of the
United States with its ** century of dishonor" —
all reiterate one solemn lesson.

The crucial point of hazard between the stronger
and the weaker peoples is in the use of brute
force to compel or to punish the ** inferior " race.
We do not claim that white men had no right to
settle in Africa or to visit and trade in the Congo
basin. We do not claim that they had no right, if
attacked, to defend themselves. We insist that,
whereas the habitual attitude of a truly superior
people should have been the attitude of friendly
and mature men, thus calling out the best side of
the childish races, — on the contrary, the habitual
attitude of white men, domineering and arrogant,

252 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

has generally reduced them to the moral level of
the barbarian. Their show of force has challenged
force and tempted the weaker people to treachery.
In other words, the " superior " or civilized people
in treating the weaker races have commonly
dropped to their level and put aside their own
civilization.

We have had more than one hundred years of a
disguised form of imperialization in our relations
with the American Indians. We have meant well
toward them in general. But the trader and the
spoilsman have always been on the ground as
soon as the teacher and the missionary. The
startling upshot of all our terrific cost in the ex-
periment of ruling the Indians has been the
lesson that they must now become citizens on
equal terms with ourselves. To treat them as
aliens or to treat them as subjects was to invite
hostility and to degrade them and ourselves. Let
the American people beware if anywhere on the
earth they have to maintain forts and garrisons in
order to control other people. This is to perpetu-
ate the methods and the spirit of barbarism, and
to tax honest business in favor of the protection
of the adventurer and the spoilsman.

Here is the weakness of the claim made by the

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 253

champions of the imperial policy of the United
States in the PhiHppine Islands. We have been
obliged to conquer these islands. We hold them
by military garrisons. We have been obliged to
destroy directly and indirectly hundreds of thou-
sands of people. What gave us a right to enter
upon such a costly career of bloodshed ? Not
surely the mere legal purchase of the islands and
their millions of people from Spain. For Spain,
in the eyes of a democratic nation, had no right
herself either to hold the Filipinos in subjection,
or to sell them like slaves without as much as
consulting them. Not one enlightened American
in a hundred, prior to 1896, would have admitted
such a right for a moment. The fact is, the
United States holds the PhiHppine Islands by
conquest, in a war which their people had never
provoked with us. We provoked it ourselves by
the assumption of the right of sovereignty, pur-
chased or wrenched from the despotic hands of
Spain. Defend this who can! Every precedent
and presumption of democratic government is
against what we have done.

We see now the nature of the only possible hu-
mane relations with a people of belated civiliza-
tion like the Filipinos. What gives us any just

254 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

claim to intervene in their affairs ? One purpose,
namely, to serve their welfare, their liberties, their
progress, in other words, to help them, as we should
like to be helped if we were in their place. If we
were sincere in this claim, it is inconceivable that
we should ever have needed to destroy more of
them than Spain had killed in a century.

The truth is that, quite like the Spaniards in
Mexico, we entered upon the island war with
mixed motives ; with general uncondern, a fraction
of missionary zeal, a moiety of national pride, and
a considerable greed of gain. The vast cost of
military operations and the colossal bloodshed
truthfully represent the undemocratic substance
of our relation to these islands ; while the slight ex-
pense for schools represents the only just claim that
we had as a democratic people to be in the Philippine
Islands. We have the empty glory of putting
down the "rebellion" of our subjects at the cost
of an army more than double that with which
Washington achieved our independence of Great
Britain. We have acquired the responsibility of a
colonial system, to be maintained by naval stations
and fortresses. No one pretends that our position
could be otherwise held for a day.

I have had no wish to speak in the tone of harsh-

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 255

ness of those who, in the vexed issue of an im-
perial policy toward the Philippine Islands, have
taken the side of ancient precedents and traditions
rather than the newer and less familiar principles
of the coming democracy. The ordinary educa-
tion has not yet trained men largely to trust in
democratic methods. The military spirit is still
powerful. We may be quite willing to credit
President McKinley's administration with a benevo-
lent intention toward the miUions of wards whom
it took under our charge. But its attitude, how-
ever benevolently intended, was that of those su-
perior people who give charity to the poor, and
are presently surprised to discover that the recipi-
ents of the charity show them no gratitude. Men
do not want charity ; they want justice, they wish
to be treated as men, not as children. The mix-
ture of the motives of business with philanthropy
is like an explosive chemical compound. The
managers of the mixed business take to themselves
credit for their philanthropy, while others see only
the mercenary motives of trade.

The most tragic events in history have been
brought about by well-meaning men who have
misunderstood their own self-will as the will of
heaven, or have insisted upon forcing their benevo-

256 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

lence upon others, with whose feelings they were
unable to sympathize. It begins to seem clear
that the administration of President McKinley, in
buying a sovereignty over men whose best people
we had never consulted or taken into our confi-
dence, and in proceeding to urge American rights
and claims, without first conciUating the feelings
of the people concerned, made the mistake natural
to the aristocrat, but which constitutes the fatal sin
against the spirit of democracy.

We trace the working of a general law. Every
form of political or industrial management in
which a group, a caste, or a race is made to take
the place of superiors, by force of arms and
incidental violence, over another group, or servile
caste, or race of men, who must be looked
down upon as inferior people, is inhuman and
works evil accordingly. The more highly devel-
oped the stronger race is, the more subtly danger-
ous becomes the arrogance which is inevitable to
such a relation. As slavery hurt men's character
before they found out that it was wrong to hold
slaves, so the relation of the ** superior" and imperial
nation involves a fatal pride. Assyrians, Romans,
and Greeks could not endure the degradation
incidental to playing the part of a .ruling people.

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 257

A democracy can least endure this aristocratic re-
lation without blunting the edge of its moral sen-
sitiveness and deadening its own love of liberty.
For the relation of superiors to inferiors is tainted
with suspicion and breeds enmity. The only se-
cure and permanent relation of the strong to the
weak, or of the educated to the ignorant, is that
of sympathy, helpfulness, humanity, and good
will. The one relation works by force, the other
by persuasion.

All this may seem too general. There are
grand precedents, it is said, in favor of the actual
success, at least for a while, of an imperial regime.
Thus Americans are often reminded of the " suc-
cess " of the British rule in India and in Egypt.
Have not the English rulers been wise, firm, and,
on the whole, just.-* Have they not made their
subject peoples incomparably happier than they
ever were before ? Let us face this important,
but dangerous, precedent of Anglo-Saxon impe-
rialism with fair minds.

The fact is, the history of British rule in India
or elsewhere is not completed, and no deductions
can yet be drawn from the unfinished record.
What we know is that the entrance of England
upon Indian soil was not in the first instance by

258 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

claim of right. A great trading company built
the foundations of the Indian empire. They hired
armies and made conquests. The British govern-
ment felt finally compelled to take over from the
hands of a private corporation the anomalous busi-
ness of ruling millions of foreign people. It
would indeed be a shame if no compensation had
fallen to the people of India. Courts of justice,
law and order, Western ideals, modern methods.
Bibles, railways, telegraphs, and the printing-press
have doubtless gone with British arms, British
liquors, and Birmingham fabrics and idols. But
every one ought to know that there is a very seamy
side of British rule in India. There is no love for
the stranger rulers. There has been imposed
above the native castes a new foreign caste, com-
posed of a race who come to India mainly to make
their fortunes. There can be no democratic co-
operation between these rulers, with their ample
salaries and European standards of life, and the
poverty-stricken multitudes, the wealth of whose
land is steadily drained away as a tribute to Eng-
land. The Indian people are nowhere learning
the lesson of liberty or the habits of self-govern-
ment. EngHsh guns keep them safe, it is said,
from some worse despotism ; Enghsh soldiers pre-

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 259

vent Mohammedans and Brahmins from fighting
each other. British fortresses prevent Russians
from stealing the sovereignty. So, no doubt,
Roman writers argued, when their legions held
Britain and Germany. The situation now, as then,
is a political and ethical anomaly, like any disease.
No foundation of solid justice underlies it. No
lover of mankind can be content with it.

Meanwhile, in the heart of England, " the sub-
merged tenth " suffer grievous poverty, not incom-
parable with that of the famine sufferers in India.
The imperial government, bent upon its foreign
business, out of which only the few draw profit or
renown, taxes its own people at home and squan-
ders upon expeditions to South Africa and into the
fastnesses of Thibet millions of pounds sterling
which, wisely spent in England, might soon put an
end to every hideous slum in her cities. What does
British imperialism do for the people of East Lon-
don ? Except where Great Britain holds men in
subjection, and they fear or hate her accordingly,
except where, by foreign possessions, she stirs
other nations to rivalry with her, she has no
need to dread the enmity of a single nation, or
to be obliged to build another war ship. For
the uncertainty of distant gain, England threatens

26o THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the peace of the world and neglects her own
children.

Moreover, England holds India and helps the
Sultan of Turkey collect tribute in Egypt, not by
virtue of her character as a democratic govern-
ment, but rather as bearing her hereditary part in
the aristocratic and monarchical system of Europe.
She has received certain Old World traditions, as a
man may take an estate encumbered with mort-
gaged. England is not yet free of the " entangling
alliances " which centuries of barbarism have be-
queathed to her rulers. Her imperialism belongs
to her past ; we can hardly doubt that it is becom-
ing a burden upon her future.

We may be also reminded that our American
democracy, in the time of the Civil War, subjected
unwilling populations and set up governments over
them by force. Yes ! For we had admitted a
relic of barbarism, in the form of slavery, into our
political system, and when the poison tainted the
life of the nation we used a radical and perilous
purgative. Slavery was an anomaly in a democ-
racy, and we attempted to cure it by the abnormal
and incongruous method of war. This was, strictly,
to make a confession of national weakness. We
were not wise or good enough in the days of our

DEMOCRACY AND IMPERIALISM 26 1

fathers, — in other words, we had not developed
true civilization enough, — to rule slavery out of
our new republic. Neither were we wise or good
enough, North or South, before the issue of civil
war fairly came, to settle it, as friendly and hu-
mane men ought to have settled it. As we join
hands. North and South, in a new loyalty to the
democratic idea and to the confirmed Union of
states, we look back and see our mistakes. We
did not do our best, but only the best that we saw.
Abraham Lincoln saw what the best would have
been. The best would have been — since all were
implicated in the existence of slavery, and the
North had shared in its temporary profit — to put
the shoulders of the whole nation together and
lift the fatal load from our path. To have paid
a billion of dollars in taxes together would have
been better than to spend billions in fighting each
other.

XXI

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE

A RESPECTED Statesman has coupled together
the Monroe doctrine and the Golden Rule. This
was to imply Mr. Hay's conviction that the Monroe
doctrine is the expression of the spirit of democ-
racy. It is a common opinion in the United
States that this famous traditional doctrine is
somehow involved with the peace and welfare of
our institutions. It is probable that multitudes,
who could not tell what the Monroe doctrine
really is, or give any account of its justice, would
rush to arms if told that the doctrine was contro-
verted by a foreign power ! Let us not be afraid
to examine the Monroe doctrine and to try to
discover how far righteous, and therefore impor-
tant, it is. Let us see if it is the expression of the
Golden Rule and whether it really makes for the
peace of the world.

The history of the development of the Monroe
doctrine is interesting and curious. In the period

262

MONROE DOCTRINE AND TH£ GOLDEN RULE 263

following the Napoleonic wars, when American
independence was still young, American states-
men were naturally sensitive about the conduct of
the great monarchical European powers, which
they associated with aristocratic and despotic ten-
dencies. Meantime the peoples of South and
Central America and Mexico, one after another,
stirred by the American love of liberty, threw off
the yoke of Spanish sovereignty and set up repub-
lican forms of government, modelled after the
United States. Along with a jealousy of Old
World political traditions and usages, Americans
of that era felt a thrill of generous sentiment
toward every government that bore the name of
a republic. The organization of the famous Holy
Alliance under the head of Russia, comprising the
despotic powers of Prussia, Austria, and Spain,
and threatening to unite the continent of Europe
in a formidable league of monarchies, roused
special apprehension concerning the possible inva-
sion of the newly won liberties of this continent.
Under these circumstances the Monroe doctrine
was promulgated, with the active sympathy and
consent of the government of Great Britain, which
little dreamed that the doctrine would ever be
invoked with the menace of war against herself !

264 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The Monroe doctrine was substantially a firm and
pacific protest against interference on the part of
the aristocratic powers of Europe with the affairs
of the Western continent. It was set forth as the
dictate of apprehension, prudence, and national
self-interest. Its purpose was the protection of
republican institutions. The cautious Mr. Adams,
President Monroe's secretary of state, never
thought of calHng the doctrine an illustration of
the Golden Rule.

See now where the world has travelled in less
than a century. Italy is free and united ; France
is a republic ; Austria and Spain, now secondary
powers, have established parliamentary govern-
ments, under which the people are well-nigh as
free as we are in America. The spirit of democ-
racy is abroad in all Europe. There is more
democratic thinking among the German people,
for example, than in all South America. The
Spanish-American republics, however, still exist.
They are republics in name, but despotisms or
aristocracies in reality. They are still laboriously
working out for themselves the costly problem of
self-government. Some of them — Mexico, Chili,
the Argentine Republic — appear to have risen
above the immediate danger line of anarchy and

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 265

chronic revolution, and to be achieving settled
political order. All these nations, though sepa-
rated from us in language and customs, and for
all practical purposes (except Mexico) as distant
as Morocco or China, have the mild sympathy and
good will of our people. We do not know them
well enough to bestow more than this. Our trade
with them is still relatively slight. We are more
closely bound in various humane relations with
nearly every kingdom of Europe than we are with
the republics to the south of us.

What now has become of our Monroe doctrine
under the totally new circumstances which meet
us .? Is there any need of it ? Would any one
think of promulgating it to-day, if it were not a
time-honored tradition, which the nation has
always kept in its armory against possible peril.?
In order to answer this question we may first see
what all good Americans must agree in desiring
for the South and Central American states. It
is for our interests, and for their interests likewise,
that they shall develop in wealth, education, and
civilization, and that they shall learn the use of
their democratic institutions, as we are learning
them in the United States. We do not wish to
see tyrannies prevail among them. Neither do we

266 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

wish to see any foreign power taking away their
independence and forcing upon them an imperial
or colonial rule. Curiously enough, we generally
agree in deprecating for the South American
people, politically undeveloped as they are, any
scheme of compulsory foreign tutelage. We pro-
test against any government doing to the South
Americans, or to the Mexicans, what we are
undertaking with the Filipinos. We generally
believe that the vpeople to the south of us are
best off when left alone to work out their own
political salvation!

In this large sense no one can have any objec-
tion to the Monroe doctrine. In this large sense,
it is doubtful whether any European power could
for a moment object to the theory of ''America
for the Americans." It is doubtful if any govern-
ment would dream of forcing its authority upon
an unwilling South American state, against the
earnest and peaceable protest of the United
States. The experience of Maximilian and the
French in Mexico is a good warning for all time.
There was no need of the United States fighting
with France. Maximihan's invasion of Mexico
was foredoomed from the start. Foreign tyranny
everywhere rests in unstable equiUbrium.

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 267

So far then as the Monroe doctrine serves as a
protection for the liberties of Americans, either
North or South, against even the mildest form of
monarchical despotism from abroad, it seems to
have already served its purpose. It is enough
to say that, excepting only Russia, which has will-
ingly withdrawn from our continent, no such mon-
archy as our fathers feared exists anywhere in
Europe. It is beyond the flight of the imagina-
tion that real peril to the liberty of the people of
the United States could come through the vantage
ground of any territory or possessions which a
European power might hold in South America.

There are two important points in which the
Monroe doctrine is still involved in unfortunate mis-
apprehension and uncertainty. The first point is,
whether or not this doctrine, properly interpreted,
requires the United States to protest, or even to
make war, against the possible transfer of Ameri-
can territory, under any and all circumstances, to
the control or the protection of any European
state.

Suppose that millions of Italian immigrants
poured into the Argentine Republic, where al-
ready a multitude of their countrymen have set-
tled. The immigrants immediately lift the level

268 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of the population in intelligence and political abil-
ity. They at last outnumber and outvote the
Spaniards and Indians. The inevitable demand
comes for more orderly and effective government.
It is improbable that such a state, built up by
peaceable immigration, would care in any way to
part with its independence. Why should Italians,
who cross the ocean to make homes and better
their condition, wish to saddle upon themselves
imperial obligations and taxes and military con-
scription ? But let us suppose the improbable
thing, that in a peaceable manner Argentina
should choose to ally herself with the mother
country from which her leading immigrants had
come, just as Canada is allied with Great Britain.
Suppose, furthermore, that the southern prov-
inces of Brazil should develop, through the large
and peaceable immigrations of Germans, from the
character of a Portuguese or Indian territory into
a state substantially German in its traditions and
sympathies. This would merely be what actually
happened in the early half of the last century in
the case of Texas, which by reason of emigration
from the United States became American instead
of Mexican. What if such a state, controlled by
sturdy German people, should set up an indepen-

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 269

dent government with or without a struggle with
Brazil ?

The Monroe doctrine certainly admits the right
of South American people to make endless revo-
lutions. As in the recent case of Panama, it allows
any part of a nation to secede and set up an in-
dependent government in what had heretofore
been only a federal state. The Monroe doctrine
could not, therefore, be held to forbid the estab-
lishment of a new German Brazil under whatever
form of government the people might choose for
themselves. We have seen Brazil under an em-
peror who was at least as good a friend to the
people of the United States, and who governed
as justly for the welfare of the Brazilians, as any
of the South American dictators who have borne
the nominal title of president. Secretary Seward,
who may be supposed to have understood the
Monroe doctrine, has assured us that the United
States could have had no cause to complain of the
presence of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, if
it could have been shown that he was the honest
choice of the Mexican people. The Monroe doc-
trine merely compels us to protest, but not nec-
essarily to go to war, against the interference
of European powers who might threaten to over-

270 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

turn an American government and take away the
liberties of its people.

What, now, if we suppose that a German
" Texas " in Brazil should honestly choose to do
what our own Texas did, and to be annexed to the
German empire ? We cannot see by what prin-
ciple of justice or reason the people of the United
States could complain of such an arrangement,
especially if it were brought about to the satis-
faction of the population involved in the proposed
change, and by regular treaty with the Portuguese
part of Brazil. Does any one seriously suppose
that the Monroe doctrine would compel the United
States to enter into a bloody war with a great
friendly power in Europe, and actually to thwart
the will of an honest majority of the people of a
South American state ?

The second point upon which the Monroe doc-
trine is liable to a new and perilous reinterpreta-
tion, and indeed to a total change of meaning,
concerns the serious financial entanglements in
which our neighbors to the south of us are in-
volved with their foreign creditors. Among the
novel functions expected of modern governments
is assistance in collecting debts owed to the citi-
zens of the stronger nation from the citizens of ill-

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 2/1

governed countries, especially the debts contracted
or guaranteed by weak and shifty governments,
as well as the damages caused to foreigners in
the course of revolutionary changes, too often pro-
moted by foreigners. The story of the attack
upon Venezuela by the combined forces of Great
Britain, Germany, and Italy illustrates a kind of
difficulty which no one in President Monroe's time
could have contemplated. Italians, Germans, and
Englishmen had ventured their money in the im-
mense risks of business in a half-civilized state,
whose revolutionary governments had also issued
their dubious bonds to be speculated upon in for-
eign markets. In 1902 an armed demonstration
was made by the three governments in the interest
of the aggrieved foreign creditors of Venezuela.
These grievances were later referred to the Hague
tribunal, which rendered the rather ominous deci-
sion that, in the settlement of the claims against
Venezuela, the citizens of the nations which had
gone to war to enforce their demands should have
the preference over similar claims of the citizens
of other governments.

Meantime the United States held, in consistency
with its usual policy in such issues, that the Mon-
roe doctrine did not forbid the intervention of

272 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

European powers in attempting to protect their
subjects from the loss of their property in South
America, provided only that intervention did not
go so far as to appropriate territory or to over-
turn the government of the country.

Grave questions arise at once, not merely touch-
ing the interpretation of the Monroe doctrine and
our relation to the South American states, but also
suggesting the need of new definitions of inter-
national law among all nations. Is it expedient
or righteous to allow any power, or any league
of powers, the license to make war upon a sov-
ereign state, and to threaten to kill its people,
for the sake of the collection of money claims
in favor of the citizens of the aggressive gov-
ernments ? This is to trust the creditor nations
with the double function of judge and sheriff.
If the precedent established in the Venezuelan
case is followed, this is to set a premium upon
the method of coercion, and substantially to rec-
ommend at least the show of war, whenever
the merchants and money-lenders of a strong
nation are in peril of losing their money in an
ill-governed country. This again is to urge
creditors rather to trust in the strong arm of
their governments for safeguarding their foreign

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 273

speculations, than to take their own risks, as all
other investors must, whenever they speculate
on the promises of impecunious and shifty
debtors.

Worse yet, the course admitted with Venezuela
means the punishment and oppression of the in-
nocent and not the guilty. The poor people,
who have in most cases reaped the least benefit
from the foreign loans spent in their country,
must be forced to pay taxes to bear the cost of
the frequent collusion between their unprincipled
and extravagant rulers with equally unscrupulous
money-lenders abroad. The poor people in the
creditor nations must also pay heavier taxes in
order to support the armaments necessary for
their own rulers to play the role of the powerful
sheriff over the seas.

It is evident that the world is not yet organ-
ized to establish an international debt-collecting
authority with force to levy on the public prop-
erty of bankrupt nations. The Hague tribunal
may indeed, if invoked, pronounce a judgment,
but it has no fleet at its disposal. It would
probably never be wise to give it the brute
force of war ships to compel the execution of
its decrees, least of all in the collection of

274 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

debts. The truth is that a bankrupt and
spendthrift nation, like an individual, has al-
ready begun to suffer its natural penalty when
the whole world knows that it cannot be trusted
any longer. Why should any one wish to kill
the people of a helpless and dishonored nation ?
Let the government of the United States, then,
instead of acquiescing in the doctrine that na-
tions may go to war to collect the debts of their
subjects, take the opposite ground, namely, that
no pecuniary considerations can constitute a suffi-
cient justification for an aggressive war. The es-
tablishment of this definite and reasonable doctrine
would be worth more than a hundred ironclads to
the United States. In fact, this would be the prac-
tical culmination and fulfilment of the Monroe
doctrine. All the traditions of our national policy
seem to favor this conduct.

Grant, however, that the commercial prejudice
in favor of going to war to collect the debts of the
weak to the strong, may prevail for a considerable
period. Two modes of interpretation of the Mon-
roe doctrine lie before the government of the
United States. One course is suggested by the
arrangement proposed between the United States
and Morales, the late dictator of Santo Domingo,

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 2/5

whereby the United States would agree substan-
tially to manage the finances, collect the customs,
and pay the foreign creditors of Santo Domingo.
The new idea is that no foreign power or combina-
tion of powers can be trusted to intervene for any
cause in the unstable politics of misgoverned
American states. To collect debts by force in-
volves more or less permanent occupation of the
ports and the necessary disturbance of the govern-
ment. To take possession of the custom-house of
a state is itself an act of sovereignty, and naturally
leads to responsibility for the good order of the
country whose ports are held. Moreover, the
agreement to allow a foreign government to ad-
minister the custom-houses must generally repre-
sent the concession of a faction or a despot, and
not the free consent of the people of the country.
It is thus the denial of real democratic government.
The extraordinary conclusion follows, that, if the
United States may not suffer European powers to
collect debts in America by force of arms, or even
to take temporary possession of their customs ports,
the United States should be prepared to under-
take the business of administering the foreign
finances of all states under the aegis of the Mon-
roe doctrine, which get into trouble with European

2/6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

creditors ! San Domingo is only the beginning of
this new policy. There is scarcely a state south
of the Rio Grande which is so far above the danger
line of national bankruptcy, or which gives such
adequate protection to foreign merchants and
creditors, as not to be liable sooner or later to
demand the offices of the United States, as con-
tinental administrator and guarantor of foreign
claims.

To this novel and startling development of the
Monroe doctrine obvious objections occur immedi-
ately. One serious class of objections touches the
policy of meddling in any way with the finances,
and therefore necessarily with the government and
the order of other states. It is clear that the peo-
ple of the United States would never submit to
the suggestion of such intermeddling in their own
affairs. They ought not then to meddle with their
neighbors. Even if it were easy and plausible to
enter upon an enterprise of this sort, it is never
easy to know how or when to withdraw. The first
step of meddling always leads to more meddling.
The assumption of responsibility involves new
responsibility. Beyond all temporary occupation
of other peoples' customs ports looms the spectre
of the annexation of the territory for which finan-

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 2/7

cial responsibility has been incurred. The story
of England in Egypt illustrates this. The story of
the United States in the Philippines is too largely
a story of blood and unwilling submission to tempt
the people of the United States to risk a series of
similar enterprises stretching over the continent.

Still more serious objections in the way of the
United States managing the foreign finances of
Hayti or of South American states arise on the
side of the complications thus involved with the
European powers themselves. The most approved
policy of the United States, inherited from the
beginning of the republic, has been the avoidance
of entanglements with military nations. But now
we are asked to serve at once as the armed judge
and the sheriff, to pass upon and to collect the
claims of the citizens of various nationalities.
Here is an endless opportunity for complaint, for
jealousy, and for friction with the governments of
Europe. Who has made the government of the
United States a judge and a divider over these
rival claimants ? Foreign speculators will hardly
be satisfied when their extravagant or fraudulent
claims are denied. What if the customs fail to
bring in returns adequate to pay hungry foreign
creditors ^ What pressure will not then be brought

278 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to bear upon the United States to wring larger
taxes out of the debtor peoples, — mostly left out
of this scheme in behalf of the money-lenders ?

Suppose now the United States adopts the alter-
native course, in line with all its precedents and
with the action of its state department as late
as the war upon Venezuela in 1902. The powers
of Europe shall be free to do in America what they
did in the case with China, and what they did in
Venezuela. They shall only be expected to desist
from the forcible and permanent occupation of
territory in opposition to the will of the inhabit-
ants. Grant that the United States ought to keep
clear of the obnoxious function of compelling
strangers to pay their debts. The question is,
whether the United States is called upon for any
righteous reason to forbid European powers from
exercising this function on our continent.

In the first place, we are evidently under no
obligation to interdict European powers from en-
forcing the claims of their subjects in America, so
long as we make no effort to bring this sort of
governmental enterprise under the ban of interna-
tional law. Moreover, so far as ill-governed states
do nothing to safeguard the lives and property of
foreigners residing in them, though we may pity

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 279

their people and regard as futile the attempt to
compel them at the point of the bayonet to be
honest, and to elect public-spirited presidents, we
can hardly justify ourselves in going to war and
imperilling millions of lives of innocent and honest
people, for the sake of shielding South Americans
from the results of their own ignorance and mis-
rule. There is no genuine sympathy on our part
with South Americans deep enough to require us
to fight against Germany or Italy to save Spanish
Americans from the hands of the sheriff.

Again, we have already suggested that, even if
we go so far as to contemplate a possible occupa-
tion of South American wildernesses by certain
European powers as the outcome of an unsuccess-
ful effort to collect bad debts in Venezuela or
Guatemala, the United States has nothing to fear
from such changes of sovereignty. A German
Guatemala would be as harmless to us as a British
or a French Guiana, or a British Honduras or
Danish West Indies. If the interests of the citi-
zens of Germany in Santo Domingo can be sup-
posed to be improved through the administration
of the Dominican custom-houses by the govern-
ment of the United States, then the interests of
the citizens of the United States would not be

280 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

likely to suffer from the possible administration of
South American ports, for a longer or shorter time,
by German officers. If trade is good between the
United States and Germany, so trade would not
suffer between a Germanized port in South Amer-
ica and the United States.

It cannot be too clearly understood that the
conditions which once recommended the Monroe
doctrine as a safeguard of American liberty and
of democratic government have altogether altered.
South America, which has suffered nearly a hun-
dred years from native autocracy and faction, has to-
day nothing to fear from European autocracy. No
European government having dealings with a
South American state threatens to injure or
abridge the liberty of the people of this con-
tinent.

Finally, Americans ought to observe a strange
tendency of the development of the Monroe 'doc-
trine in the direction of outright commercialism
and national selfishness. The key to the original
understanding of the Monroe doctrine was the
word " liberty." The men of Monroe's time
wished to protect the United States from the
perils of militarism. The clew to understand
the new purpose in pressing the Monroe doctrine

MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GOLDEN RULE 28 1

is " commercialism." The idea is beginning to
unfold that the United States must keep control
of the continent in the interest of trade and for
the purpose of commercial "exploitation." There
are vast forests, rich mines, and fat lands in South
America. Capital is ready to rush in and seize its
advantages. It is jealous of rival capital seeking
investment from Europe. Whereas once the cry
was to save South American liberty from the
attacks of despotism, it is now whispered that we
must keep South America as a field for the em-
ployment of American capital. Once the doctrine
was political and stood roughly for a principle of
democracy; the Monroe doctrine already promises
to become an economical proposition. In its new
meaning, under the guise of a powerful navy, its
devotees clamor for a vast military expense. If
ever the Golden Rule was in it, the rule of gold is
taking its place. Let Americans everywhere upon
the continent beware, lest the Monroe doctrine
become a fetich and superstition and the enemy
of real democracy.

XXII

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER

It is flattering to our national pride to be told
that we have lately become a world power. It is
agreeable to believe that men in every part of the
world hold us in a new respect since the battle of
Manila Bay. We are assured that our diplomacy
has suddenly come to take rank with the greatest
nations, and that even in Pekin imperial mandarins
listen for our words. We are now at last to take
our place in the lead of the world, peaceably, of
course, if we can, but forcibly if we must. It
appeals to our chivalry to learn what great things
we are prepared to do, wherever oppression is,
where a missionary station has been burned, or a
Perdicaris kidnapped for ransom.

All Americans wish the expansion of the influ-
ence and the power of our country. The question
before us concerns the nature or character of our
national expansion. There is an ideal which many
have conceived, of which we had better beware,
for it has brought havoc to every people who have

282

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 283

conceived it. It is the ideal of a people who im-
press others with envy, jealousy, and fear. It is
the ideal of a people who impose their authority
and their civilization upon other peoples. It is the
ideal of figures, gross numbers, and areas of square
miles. There is at present a recrudescence of this
notion of national grandeur. It is the more subtle,
because it is mixed with an appeal to both merce-
nary and chivalrous motives ; ingenious and sophis-
tical reasons are given in leading journals, and
often in the name of religion and humanity, for
the imaginary philanthropic results to be won on
the grand track of " world power."

There is happily another and no less splendid
ideal of national expansion, which, in more than
one hundred years, we have hardly begun to real-
ize. It concerns first the welfare of the forgotten
multitudes of the American people. It touches
the quahty of their Hfe. Millions of them are
poorly housed, scantily clad, little educated. In
the midst of modern wealth a host of them earn as
yet small wages. Add to their skill and effective-
ness, elevate their standards, increase the demands
of their manhood, make them happier, lift the level
of their pleasures, and you will presently multiply
immensely the power and the life of the nation.

284 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Raise the average welfare, and you will raise every
one with it. We do not necessarily mean paternal
or socialistic measures ; we mean popular or demo-
cratic measures, — the release of the people from
the control of monopoHsts, fair and just taxa-
tion, the more intelligent holding and use of the
land (the foundation of all prosperity), and vastly
better education for all children.

We desire to be a world power in advance of all
the nations. There is nothing which we can do
for the oppressed peoples of Europe and Asia, so
beneficent and far-reaching, as to provide an object-
lesson for the world of what a truly democratic
government may be, to work out the nice relations
between wise governmental action and the freedom
of the individual initiative, to take friendly care of
our vast new immigrant populations, to absorb and
assimilate them into a happy nation.

We still lavish the larger part of our national
income for the purpose of militarism, whereas we
need nearly every million of this expense for the
interests of the people, the means and appliances
of civilization, for good roads, for the building
and equipment of schools, for the redeeming of
ugly cities to beauty and happiness. The expense
of a war ship stirs the suspicion of foreign

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 285

peoples. The same expense in lifting the condi-
tion of the people tends to make all nations our
friends. The need of the world to-day is to see
one great and successful power marching in the
way of peace and human progress, and teaching
the methods and the principles of humanity.

Every nation stands ready to follow America
in this ideal of national expansion, as every nation
is ready to fear and^Tiate "herTif once she plays,
though in the most delicate fashion, the part of
the bully or the braggart. In short, the great
nation is like the great man. He is not the
greatest whom others obey, but he who persuades
the others by effectual and friendly good will.

True, the world is full of difficult problems.
Anomalies and barbarisms exist everywhere.
Brigandage and outlawry are to be found on an
almost national scale, as in the Barbary states
and in Turkey. Great powers and small, led by
the fooUsh, the arrogant, and the unscrupulous,
furnish continual provocation. Little nations,
like Denmark and Holland, are not beyond the
peril of being swallowed by their greedy neigh-
bors. The United States may be quite safe by
herself. Has she no duty in the family of na-
tions, except to stand apart in her strength and

286 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

work out the problems of a happy civilization
within her own borders ? Must it not concern
her if her neighbors quarrel and do each other
injustice ?

The fact is, the world is coming into sight of
certain great principles of international law and ac-
tion. We are learning that the duties of justice
and friendly conduct between individuals and be-
tween peoples are analogous, if not exactly the
same. As we long ago found that no individual
was good or wise enough to be plaintiff or defend-
ant, and at the same time the judge over his
own cause, so we are learning in the case of issues
between nations. We know that no third party,
however friendly or disinterested he thinks him-
self, may safely intervene, unasked, to settle a
quarrel between individuals by force. We are
finding that the same truth holds good among
the nations. No single government is wise or
good or disinterested enough to be able to meddle
and to take sides in the quarrels of other peoples.
Costly experience is urging the world of nations
to that point where long ago the world of individ-
uals agreed to stand. We may do together, or
cooperatively, what we may not dare to do alone.
We may establish settled courts, we may meet in

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 287

congresses, we may unite in joint agreements,
we may and must make treaties. We may and
must settle our international grievances, as decent
and law-abiding individuals settle their difficulties,
by rules, and with the help of counsel and by
the arbitrament of the disinterested ; and where one
meddler alone would invite suspicion, we may pro-
ceed together by the earnest intervention of many,
thus commanding respect.

We are aware of the objection urged by those
who, in a world of change, always hold out for the
stattis quo, and resist reform. They tell us that no
international congress or court has the power to
enforce its authority upon an independent recal-
citrant sovereignty. They urge that the most
serious questions, about which nations are plunged
into war, touch their honor or their territory, and
cannot be submitted to any arbitrament but that
of battle.

The truth is, however, especially as the world
grows in civilization, that it is not so much com-
pulsion and force, as the pressure of an aroused
public opinion of justice, that enforces all judicial
decrees. It is the same with nations as with indi-
viduals.

The " wager of battle " is always a form of

288 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

lottery. It can never be depended upon to settle
any question justly or permanently. An inter-
national tribunal, on the other hand, however
fallible like any other court, yet being governed
by canons of reason, is hardly likely to do gross
injustice by its decisions. The appeal to it saves
the honor of the nations who submit to it, while
even an erroneous decision may always, if really
important, obtain a final reversal of judgment.

The history of most modern wars affords strik-
ing proof of our point. The costly interference of
England, France, and Italy in the Crimean war,
for example, failed to have the least permanent
use in settling the Eastern question. That ques-
tian was never more feverish than it is to-day.
Even the famous march to Pekin to put down the
Boxer rebellion, necessary as it seemed, was itself
the disastrous result of a long and aggravating
policy of unfriendly and aggressive interference
by Western powers in the affairs of China.

The time has come to demand new and effective
international law. Congresses of the nations will
sometime be called to make such law. The action
of an international congress will sometime secure
the reduction of the appalling armaments of the
world. The civilized world will proclaim authori-

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 289

tatively a new international law forbidding the
invasion of neutral territory by warring powers.

Grant that Japan and Russia had to fight. They
had no right to be carrying on their work of de-
struction in either Korea or Manchuria. The
common humanity of all nations ought to forbid
such an outrage upon innocent peoples. In fact,
an international agreement, safeguarding the plain
rights of neutrals, would have rendered the war
between Russia and Japan well-nigh impossible.
Neither in the face of such a general law of
nations would Russia have wasted her money in
fortifications at Port Arthur.

Observe now a marked change of attitude among
nations toward belligerents. Whereas once the
presumption was in favor of letting nations fight
at whatever cost and discomfort to noncombatants,
the presumption now tends to be against fighting
and in favor of noncombatants. The world no
longer can affprd to look on and see the immense
interests of the peaceable powers hazarded by the
chance of war. Floating mines become a common
nuisance. Battle-ships firing on innocent fisher-
men are intolerable. International law has already
begun to safeguard neutral ships. Why not safe-
guard and neutralize the ocean ? If ever naval

290 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

power seemed necessary for defence against foreign
aggression, modern war ships have become rather a
means for aggression than defence. Neither are
they needed to protect commerce. So far as there
is the slightest danger of piracy, the ironclad is an
awkward and futile instrument. There is no na-
tion for whose interest it would not be to forbid the
presence of war ships upon the ocean, exactly as
the United States and Canada forbid them on the
Great Lakes. Why should the sea, the natural
barrier against war, be suffered to be made the
means and the theatre of international carnage?
We do not urge that any scheme will altogether
obviate human friction, or put an immediate end
to national selfishness and its resultant injustice.
We do not profess that a world without war will
be a perfect world, or that many perplexing ques-
tions will not to the end of time tax men's patience
and ingenuity. We do not deny that a union of
civilized nations might wrong weaker and childish
peoples, as single strong powers have done in the
past. The question of safeguarding traders and
missionaries in the heart of Africa, in Turkey, or
in Morocco, is always fraught with perils of mis-
chief. It might be better for all concerned to
require travellers and visitors who venture into the

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 29 1

half -civilized corners of the earth, to take their own
risk, to be on their good behavior, and thus to learn
to conciliate the native peoples.

It is conceivable that a congress of nations
might be tempted to take in hand, by joint control
or by mutual division among them, the enormous,
perilous problem of the tropical regions. The fact
remains obvious to all who read history, that the
key to the solution of human problems is not in
conquest or force, but only in the slow, patient,
costly, but infinitely more fruitful and civilizing
methods of commerce, education, sympathy, and
good will. A democratic family of nations will
find no other means necessary to solve its prob-
lems. All the economical and industrial forces of
the world work together to urge the use of such
means. There is no modern world power worthy
of the name which is not growing more civilized
every day. And civilization is essentially the
highest product of humanity.

Meanwhile the idea of the organization of the
world into an orderly scheme of cooperation is
everywhere coming to consciousness. Innumer-
able international conferences of scholars and men
of science, of students and intercollegiate bodies,
of parliamentarians, of lawyers, of reformers, of

292 THE SPIRIT OF DEM'OCRACY

business interests, of working-men and their unions,
bring representatives of all peoples together with
a most hopeful frequency. The world is already
becoming organized into an intellectual, industrial,
commercial, financial, and even religious unity,
faster than most men are aware. Political unity is
only a single form among many modes of organi-
zation. The more complete this organization of
the world is, which proceeds upon the natural lines
of travel, trade, science, thought, mutual interests,
in short, of humanity, the more elastic will be the
coming political unity among the nations, and the
freer it will be of the peril and the cost of cen-
tralized authority supported by force. When we
use the familiar phrase, " a family of nations," we
imply an ideal of world unity in which every
smallest nationality shall have full recognition and
Uberty.

XXIII

POPULAR TAXATION

We speak of popular government and popular
sovereignty. Why should we hesitate to speak
also of popular taxation ? The truth is, the con-
sideration of true democracy involves almost an
entire change in the idea of the purpose or intent
of taxation. Throughout the larger part of human
history a tax has been generally thought to be a
burden imposed, like a fine, upon one set of peo-
ple, known as the governed, by and for another
ruling group. Thus, subject peoples always paid
a tribute or tax to their conquerors. The various
peoples that made up the Assyrian, the Persian, the
Macedonian, or the Roman empire, were forced to
pay whatever was demanded for the support of the
imperial armies and courts. The poor people of
India to-day pay millions of pounds sterling at the
behest of British rulers. England stands behind
the tribute paid by poor Egypt and Cyprus to the
tyrannical Sultan of Turkey.

Not only were conquered people required to pay
293

294 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

taxes to their rulers ; the people of each indepen-
dent nation had also to help support the king and
his captains, their lords. The feudal system was
an enormous scheme to maintain a centralized
government over discordant populations. The
ruling people must furnish soldiery and the sup-
plies of war, while they in turn looked to their
vassals for the tribute necessary to keep them in
the field. It was only a step to commute service
in kind for money payments. The point is that
the taxation of the world has largely represented
some form of exaction rendered by the many to
the exalted few who carried on the government.
For what popular service do the taxes go even now
in Oriental countries or in Russia ? Of what use to
the people are the larger part of the national taxes
of France or Germany or Italy.? What makes
revolutionary anarchists of educated Russians ?
It is the fact that the people pay tribute out of
their poverty without receiving any compensatory
advantage. The anarchist not unnaturally sur-
mises that the national government does more
harm than good.

The payment of tribute exacted from a subject
people is rarely without plausible justification.
The rulers may commonly urge, as the British

POPULAR TAXATION 295

conquerors of India urge to-day, that they render
a necessary service to their people by defending
them from their enemies and exchanging rude
tribal or village justice for a firmer hand. The
taxes are simply enforced payment for services
actually rendered. The few, according to this
theory, merely set their own price and give such
service in return as they please. As the rulers
become more civilized, and their subjects more
sensitive, as new standards of justice, humanity,
and civilization prevail, the pressure increases to
give the people something to show for the money
payments required of them. Thus the conscience
of England constrains the imperial government to
expend in India certain moneys for irrigation, for
education, for the relief of the people from famine
and the plague.

The history and the traditions of taxation carry
an almost invariable prejudice against both the
fact and the name. Even with the American
and English people, who have enjoyed several
generations of representative government, the com-
mon association of ideas connects the thought of
a tax with a burden imposed. Men who have
had a share in ordering their own taxes show
reluctance to pay them. Men, honest in other

296 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

particulars, are pleased to evade their dues to
the very government of which they are members.
So heavily do the ancient traditions still color
the obnoxious word ''taxation."

What is the meaning of taxation in a true
democracy ? It is a pity that we could not alter
the word in order to cover a new and generous
idea. A tax, rightly understood, is a contribution
shared by all in exchange for common benefits
received. Through cooperation the whole peo-
ple are enabled to enjoy advantages which no one
could otherwise have, or at best, only the few
could obtain. A pure water supply, scientific
hygienic arrangements, hospitals, libraries, public
schools, are among the things, continually grow-
ing in number and importance, which we all
combine to purchase for all. It is not essential
that the individual citizen shall always person-
ally enjoy the thing which his public contribu-
tion or tax helps to secure. The childless mill-
ionnaire was quite right who said to his friend
that there was no part of his tax which he more
willingly paid than that which went to the sup-
port of schools for other people's children. He
was satisfied that the welfare, the intelligence,
and the wealth, out of which his own income

POPULAR TAXATION 297

was drawn, depended upon the public school
system. The same may be said of the individual
who may have no occasion to use the water sup-
ply or the municipal sewerage system. His own
health and the health of his family are inextri-
cably bound up with the public health which his
taxes serve to improve.

Whereas, in the old days, a subject was gen-
erally the poorer for having paid the tax exacted
from him, and was often ruined by the tax col-
lector, as men are ruined in Turkey to-day, every
free citizen of a democracy is richer and happier
for the payment of those public contributions
which he still calls " the taxes." This is undoubt-
edly true in almost all American communities,
despite undeniable waste and extravagance, and
despite the heavy burdens which we pay as the
cost of intemperance and crime. It is most
nearly true in regard to our town and city ad-
ministration, and it is least true for our national
government, where we pay the larger part of the
vast sum levied upon all the people on account
of wars fought in the past, or for preparation
against wars apprehended. Thus the national
government of the United States, at first mod-
estly administered with a view merely to public

298 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

necessities, has developed to a point of reckless-
ness in expenditure where the people are able
to see little profit by way of return for the
moneys expended.

In other words, the further government is
removed from direct responsibility to the people
who must pay for it, the more costly it becomes,
and the closer to the danger line of needless
waste. Nevertheless, even the national govern-
ment, once reduced to its legitimate functions and
steered with an eye to the welfare of the American
people, normally returns to the people in advan-
tages all that they expend upon its support.

There are national services, as we have already
seen, which the people of all the states can prob-
ably do together better than the people of the
several states could do them alone. It is an open
question, however, whether, in a peaceable and
civilized world, the performance of these larger
services, such as the post-office, or the building of
lighthouses, would require a very strongly cen-
tralized national government. It is a grave prob-
lem whether the people of the United States are
not laying too much stress and comparative ex-
pense upon their national system, and do not
rather need to put their care, their thought, and

POPULAR TAXATION 299

their contributions immensely more upon the
strengthening and the perfecting of their local
administrations. It may well be that the pathway
of future democratic success, and therefore of out-
lay, lies in the direction of admirable and efficient
home rule, touching closely the lives of the peo-
ple, rather than in ambitious and costly schemes
of national aggrandizement, wherein men are
tempted blindly to follow those Old World and
undemocratic traditions which favor the few at
the expense of the many.

The idea of the public taxes as the joint and
willing contributions of all the people for their
common advantage at once carries with it certain
natural inferences. For example, we used to be
told that it was desirable that a tax should be
indirect, and so laid that, if possible, no man might
know how much he paid or when he paid it. This
was obviously an excellent and shrewd plan for a
tyranny or an oligarchy. It is easy to see how
unwise this scheme is for a democracy. The free
and intelligent citizen wants to know exactly
what his fair share of the common burden is. No
honest poor man thanks his government for
hoodwinking or deceiving him. The fact is the
poor really bear, and must bear, from the neces-

300 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

sity of the case, the bulk of the burdens of taxa-
tion. In other words, the multitude of the people
combine in a democracy to secure common ends,
and therefore the multitude must pay for what
they get. In the ultimate analysis value of every
kind is traced back to some form of human labor
or activity. All economic values arise out of
manual or mental labor. Money merely meas-
ures the various degrees and amounts of human
activity.

Our national system of taxation, being almost
wholly indirect, is therefore ill devised for a
democracy. The citizen never knows what the
government costs him. He pays his contribution
without any consciousness that he is paying it,
and without any sense of a common patriotic
obligation in which he is a sharer. All national
waste and extravagance is covered up in the items
of his own personal expenditure. It is perhaps
fitting that the cost of war should be largely con-
cealed in the enormous drink bill of the people!
Would the people, however, really sanction and
willingly contribute more than half a billion
dollars every year as appropriated by Congress,
if each average household were obliged to furnish
some $30 to $40 in actual money payment.? If

POPULAR TAXATION 3OI

each man's bill for national expense were directly
presented to him, we should each scrutinize such
tax bills, as we righteously ought to do ; we should
want to know what moneys served the public
good ; we should make wholesome protest against
reckless appropriations and recall to private life
congressmen who waste the people's money. The
nation suffers to-day from a system of taxation
which was never designed to serve intelligent and
self-respecting people, and which is without any
ethical value in training men to bear the burdens
of good citizenship together.

Let us see what simple principles a good demo-
cratic system of taxation should follow. In the
first place, every one who enjoys citizenship should
help contribute to the support of the common
government. No honorable man or woman
wishes to be made a pauper by any rule of exemp-
tion. If it were possible to exempt the poor and
to levy taxes upon the rich, no one would wish
to do this. No recognition of a line of division
between rich and poor is tolerable in a democracy.
All the citizens should not only contribute to-
gether, but all should know that they contribute,
and, so far as possible, what they contribute.
Thus the thousands of voters in our great cities

302 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

who pay directly not as much as a poll tax, ac-
tually do help pay millions of dollars to carry on
their municipal and state government. They pay
a tax in every weekly or monthly rent bill, and
in every street-car fare. It is unfortunate that
they do not know they pay anything. They
think that others pay, and that, in voting shiftless
officials into power, other men must pay the bills.

The tax or contribution should also be levied
in such a way as not to be oppressive to any one.
It should be assessed in proportion to the relative
means and abihty of those who bear it. What
wealthy members of the community are there so
unjust as not to choose to pay larger taxes in
accordance with their larger means .'* It is a vaHd
ethical objection against the extreme form of the
so-called " single tax," that it would seem to tax
the humble cultivator of a cabbage patch as much
as the richer factory owner who held the adjoin-
ing piece of land. Would the man who enjoys
;J 1 0,000 a year be content to pay only the same
tax as the man who has ^looo."* The element
of relative abihty certainly ought to enter into the
tax system of a democracy.

The method of taxation should be so obviously
just as not to tempt men to evasion, or much

POPULAR TAXATION 303

worse, to downright falsehood. Here is the
mischief of the schemes in vogue in most Ameri-
can states. The people in their corporate capacity,
for example, in Massachusetts, attempt to tax
the same property twice. They order a tax to
be levied, not only on actual values, as on houses^
railways, and lands, but also on the paper evi-
dences of value, on bonds and certificates of stock.
A Massachusetts millionnaire who owns blocks of
buildings in Chicago is taxed once, — in Chicago
alone. A widow, with a few shares of stock in a
corporation in Chicago, must pay two taxes, one
there on the actual property, and another larger
one at her home in Boston or Salem, on account of
her bit of paper certificate of stock. Almost every-
where the people are guilty of such injustice to
one another, — an injustice which almost never
falls upon the rich, and not at all upon the unscru-
pulous, but generally upon honest people of
moderate means.

A fair tax ought also to be made to encourage
the people to use and to improve their houses and
other property to the utmost. The ordinary sys-
tem does not work in this way. The larger land-
owners, for example, are apt to enjoy excessive
and quite illegal exemptions, while the assessors

304 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

pounce upon every slight improvement made by
poor and industrious people. The wealthy are
enabled to hold lands which they do not use,
while the farmer who builds a new poultry-house
or a little stable must pay a tax immediately
upon it.

The fair tax should also be apportioned to the
convenience of the people who pay it. It is the
one merit of indirect taxes that they are paid with-
out needless burdensomeness. They ask for only
a few cents at a time, as where a man smokes a
cigar or drinks a glass of beer, or a woman buys
an imported piece of gingham. We have seen that
it is undesirable that men should not feel the cost
of their own government at all. It is absurd to
deny that the common government costs a great
deal. It is wholesome and bracing to men to be
conscious that they are sharing in their common
burdens. But it is an oppression to most men,
who receive only weekly wages, or a monthly sal-
ary, to be compelled at a single payment to bear
the whole load of their annual taxes.

The average state and municipal tax for every
man, woman, and child who lives in the city of
Boston is Httle less than ^30. Fortunately this
is higher than the tax of most other cities, but

POPULAR TAXATION 305

there can be few heads of families in well-to-do
towns, whose actual annual tax, however concealed,
is not as much as $25, a sum too large for the
poorer man to pay at one time. Some such form
of quarterly or monthly payment would seem to be
called for in the collection of our public dues, as
is provided in numerous insurance and fraternal
societies and in the support of churches.

Another characteristic of a democratic system of
taxation is that it makes appeal to the good will
and the free consent of the people. It is their
own tax for their own ends, and not a tribute forced
upon them from without, or by a few designing
fellow-citizens who have captured the government.
Guarded indeed by needful rules, it is on the whole
voluntary. The rules are for common convenience,
and are intended to reenforce, not to menace, the
prevailing sense of freedom. The challenge to
the citizen who possibly questions his taxes is not
the sight of the sheriff and the jail, but the frank
and honest appeal to his justice and chivalry. Do
you not wish to pay your share in the common
burdens of your city, your state, or your country ?

There doubtless needs to be some defined system
of taxes. This is necessary for the sake of order,
regularity, fairness, and efficiency. It would not

306 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

do for a modern community to depend upon merely
voluntary contributions, as the old free city of
Hamburg once did. We each need to be told as
exactly as possible what our fair share of the taxes
is. No man is a good judge of this question in his
own case. We are glad to appoint impartial assess-
ors who shall take the burden from our consciences,
and determine for each what he ought to con-
tribute. This fact does not prevent any one from
taking the same honorable satisfaction in the pay-
ment of his taxes that he takes in paying for other
useful service rendered, or even in offering his
share of support to his lodge or his church.

I am reminded that there remains an element of
force behind the tax-collector. So far as this is
true, it is an anomaly in a democracy. It repre-
sents our failure to understand the nature of our
own institutions, as different from, and a distinct
advance upon, any former scheme of government.
This displeasing element of compulsion also rep-
resents a certain prevailing resentment against the
notorious wastefulness of pubHc officials. The
victim of a Tammany or a Quay regime can hardly
take democratic pleasure in supporting a rule of
** graft." It is democratic government which we
are considering, however, and not oligarchic or

POPULAR TAXATION 307

despotic misrule. As fast as we the people secure
an honest administration which truly represents us,
we shall need little force to urge us to pay our
share for carrying it on. Already there is almost
as little need of the presence of the sheriff to col-
lect the taxes in a well-conditioned New England
town, as there is need of his help in compelling
the ordinary citizen to pay his bills at the provision
store.

The question may here be raised, whether the
good democracy might not wisely appeal for cer-
tain public luxuries, like new buildings or the
adornment of streets and squares, to the pure gen-
erosity of its people. As long as considerable
differences continue between the extremes of wealth
and poverty, there would seem to be subjects of
expense upon the wisdom of which there might
not be general agreement at the polls, for which
the humbler incomes should not be taxed, and
which might therefore be left to the liberality of
the abler and more fortunate men and women.
Might it not be fair to require the people who
think the nation needs a larger supply of battle-
ships, to provide the means for building them ?

XXIV

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION

Certain forms of taxation specially commend
themselves as suitable to a democracy. The most
obvious of these touches the land. It is an extraor-
dinary assumption on the part of a man, that he
should claim the right to own the land which he
did not create, that he should presume to with-
hold it from use for as long a time as he chooses,
that he should stand like " a dog in the manger "
in the way of its improvement, and that even at
the moment of death he should venture to pre-
scribe what must be done with his land as long as
the world endures !

Theoretically, at least, it would seem clear that
no man should hold rights over the land any more
than over the common air, the sunshine, and the
water, beyond his own necessities. Theoretically,
no man ought to be able to take profit out of the
labor of his fellows in consideration for their being
permitted to use the land. Men seize lands to
which no original owner could ever have given a
valid title ; they lay hands on corner lots in cities,

308

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION 309

beautiful sites on the hills or along the shores of
the sea, on mines and forests in the wilderness ;
they write their private names over these proper-
ties, and at last reap an increment which they may
have never done an hour's work to increase, but
which simply arises out of the growing needs, the
demands, and the aggregate toil of a nation ! This
is not just. How can private property be justly
created without social service?

From every point of view, the land affords a
direct and natural subject of taxation. Grant, what
is not true, that every present owner of land has
actually paid for it in honest money. Grant, what
is hard to prove, that it is on the whole for the
public convenience and welfare, that is, for the
most profitable use of the earth, to permit the pres-
ent system of private ownership of the land. Yet
land is everywhere the basis of the expenditure
of pretty nearly all labor, skill, and intelligence.
Nearly every one must use the land in some way
in order to live. Assess a tax on the values of the
land, and every one must help pay the tax. It is
the kind of tax that can be most definitely known,
and that cannot be evaded. It is least likely to do
injustice, for whoever cares not to use land can and
ought to relinquish it.

3IO THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

We do not necessarily advocate "the single tax,"
that is, the tax upon merely that part of the value
of land which comes by the gifts of nature, or by
virtue of its situation, as on a harbor front or a
city avenue. This part of land value, however,
surely ought to bear, as it does not now generally
bear, the full weight of its burden. In other
words, the whole community, and not merely ex-
ceptional individuals, ought in justice to enjoy the
advantages which the growth and the wealth of all
have created. The natural increase of rental value
of land which comes from the public ought to go
to the public. This is not because there is in the
land a magic source of wealth aside from the labor
of man, but it is because the new values represent
the sum of the common labor and skill, and ought
never to be absorbed by the few. The assessors
should be required honestly to mark these un-
earned increments of land value to their full limit,
and keep marking them up, as fast as they ad-
vance. The tax on this kind of property ought
in justice to be very much higher than upon the
kinds of property which the labor of man actually
creates.

Why should the whole people suffer a continual
injustice for fear of doing a slighter and merely

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION 31 1

temporary incidental injustice to a class of the
people who have already reaped immense private
advantage by a privileged abuse of the tenure of
land ? We wonder what is to become of inordi-
nate aggregations of property. We can at least
order that they shall be honestly taxed. Nearly
all the great trusts which alarm us rest upon
enormous holdings of valuable land, which every
one ought to know, as in the notorious case of
the United States Steel Company, are allowed
unfair exemptions by timid or dishonest methods
of assessment.

Honest taxes upon land of which its owners
are not as yet prepared to make profitable use
might lead to its abandonment to the public.
This would be only right. All forests and mines,
for example, should be brought under the hands
of the people, who ought never to have parted
with them.

Another form of popular taxation touches all
kinds of houses, shops, and buildings. These rep-
resent human industry and saving. They are sub-
ject to constant deterioration and risk of loss by
fire. They ought to be taxed at a lower rate than
the land on which they stand. The tax upon
homes at a moderate rate is specially suited to be

312 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

borne by all the people who enjoy citizenship,
inasmuch as all must generally use homes. Most
people, unfortunately, rent their houses and do not
own them. The tax which they all really pay
should then be paid as a tax, and not concealed
in the rent. Or, if it were paid with the rent and
in small sums at a time, its exact amount should be
required to be shown in the bills and receipts for
the rent.

Nearly all property worth using as a basis for
taxation is to be found under the head of lands
and buildings, and does not need to be hunted for
in people's stockings or in bank vaults. But, as
long as the public grants franchises to various
corporations, and especially to railways and tele-
graph companies, the people have the choice be-
tween the levying of equitable franchise taxes upon
this subtle form of property, conveyed by act of
the people, or of enjoying cheaper rates of ser-
vice. It is ridiculous that such franchises should
be exploited by the few at the cost of the many
who grant them. It is sheer robbery, to be cor-
rected by plain restitution, like other acts of rob-
bery, when such franchises, made to run for a
hundred years or in perpetuity, have been bought
from pliant legislatures and corrupt city councils.

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION 313

It must always seem reasonable to levy a tax
upon luxuries. There is no time when it is more
easy or fitting to give one's contribution for the
public good than when one is laying out money
in personal indulgences. It would be wholesome
if dealers in liquors and tobacco were required to
placard the amount of the government tax in-
volved in the purchase of each cigar or glass of
beer. The bill rendered for imported silks and
other goods might also be required to indicate
what proportion of the cost pays the duty to the
government. Surely no good citizen would enjoy
his luxuries the less for knowing what per cent of
his money went to the public purse!

The chief requirement of a good luxury tax is
that it should bear justly upon the rich, and not
be levied unduly upon the extravagances or even
the vices of the poor. A recent Massachusetts
tax commission has made a suggestion which
ought to commend itself as righteous and simple.
It proposes a special tax to be assessed upon the
value of residences, above a certain modest
amount of exempted value. This tax would rep-
resent the scale of living, the furniture, the
appointments, and the luxuries which almost inva-
riably go with the houses of well-to-do and

314 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

wealthy people. These furnishings are in some
cases almost, if not quite, as expensive as the resi-
dence itself. They now largely escape taxation
to the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A tax upon house furnishings in detail, upon
watches, diamonds, and bric-a-brac, would be
inquisitorial and offensive. But a general tax,
based upon the value of the house, upon its spa-
ciousness and elegance — would cover all this
enormous and increasing volume of more or less
luxurious personal property. This is the kind of
tax which the more favored class in a democracy
might be fairly expected to choose to contribute
out of their surplus. It could nowhere work
injustice. For no one is obliged to live in a house
so expensive as to induce a great tax of this kind.
If it tended to discourage the building of private
palaces, so much the better. Palaces for private
citizens are incongruous in a democracy. Such a
tax might also justly be so graded as to bear
gently on moderate homes, and more heavily in
proportion to the higher scale of expense lavished
upon the various residences, apartment houses, or
hotels in which wealthy people live. It would
thus practically take the place of a graduated
income tax, as being simpler to assess and collect,

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION 315

and less liable to abuse by way of dishonest
evasion.

The principle of this kind of tax would rightly
touch certain special forms of personal indulgence,
such as yachts and automobiles. Why should not
a steam yacht worth a hundred thousand dollars
pay a tax at least twice as high as the same prop-
erty invested in a dozen fishing schooners ? The
owner of the yacht ought strictly to take an hon-
est pride in paying more for his pleasure than his
neighbor pays for the bare chance of earning his
living!

The democracy is certain to look with growing
disfavor upon the dubious claim of a right to
bequeath unlimited property by will. There can
evidently be no natural right to lay **the dead
hand " upon generations of men unborn. The
Astors, Carnegies, and Rockefellers already pos-
sess an exaggerated title to set their own terms
and to tax the public in every dollar's worth of
transportation or coal or oil which we buy. It
is preposterous that they should be allowed to go
on taxing the public forever and for the benefit of
heirs to whom the world owes nothing.

While the people may well deem it expedient to
allow the free bestowal of modest estates, nothing

3l6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

can be more just and wise than to require at the
death of wealthy persons, by some graduated sys-
tem of inheritance tax, the division of their estates
with the whole community, by whose cooperation
in every case such properties must have arisen.
It is no oppression to oblige the legatee to share
his pure good fortune with the public. The
oppression is on the other side, when a new gen-,
eration finds itself bound to pay, out of the labor
of all the people, to support a class of inheritors
whose sole claim is that their grandparents were
long ago paid quite too liberally for services
rendered. That heirs should enjoy the heirlooms
and wear the diamonds and divide the choice
personal furnishings of their fortunate ancestors
may be proper enough. That they should be
given a permanent lien on the lands, the minerals,
the mechanical powers, and the industrial tools of
the working world, by the use of which men live,
is a totally different and insufferable claim.

A word is pertinent here, touching the subject
of pubHc indebtedness. The past century has
been signalized by an extraordinary and colossal
aggregation of national, state,, and municipal
debts. The people have been in a hurry to get
things faster than they were willing to pay for

DEMOCRATIC FORMS OF TAXATION 317

them. Mayors and aldermen who could not live
within their own personal incomes have been too
ready to advise the public to spend beyond their
means. Men in haste to be rich have disliked
to part with their gains to pay for necessary public
improvements. They have been thoughtless enough
to bequeath a load of public debt to their children.
" Give us time to make money," they have urged,
"and let others clear up our debts after us." The
money-lending class have been more than willing
to engage the public in the floating of loans, often
bearing high rates of interest, or extending beyond
the lifetime of the generation who borrowed the
money.

It is time to call a halt upon this extravagant,
reckless, and undemocratic habit of public debt.
The state is made to set a foolish example to its
own children. A class of public creditors is raised
up, over against the multitude, who are merely
debtors to pay both principal and interest. A
habit of debt leads to more debt. Presently the
people are actually paying more money on
account of the debt than they would need to be
paying for all the purposes for which new debts
are annually incurred, if at the beginning they had
exercised some slight self-control, had faced some-

3l8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

what larger taxes manfully together, had required
the rich to pay their honorable share with the
others, and had followed the good private and
democratic rule, to "pay as you go."

A prosperous democracy, whether a town or a
nation, ought never, unless in quite exceptional
circumstances, and then for a very short term of
years, to incur any debt. There are always, as a
general rule, labor, skill, means, and material of
every kind, to be had at the public need, sufficient
to carry on the greatest public improvements, free
of indebtedness, provided only that the people
actually cooperate in their effort. We hardly yet
realize how vast, under civilized conditions, the
cooperative forces of a community are. A nation
which, with perhaps one million hands constantly
idle, still lives with a total income of ten or
twelve billion dollars a year, needs to put forth
no great strain in order to spend an extra bilUon,
if need be, out of the combined efforts of all, to
effect needful public improvements, to provide
good roads, to secure excellent education for its
children, and to take the best of care for all its
wards.

XXV

LOCAL DEMOCRACY

We have seen that the beginnings of modern
democracy were in the towns and other local
schemes of communal cooperation. It may be
held that democracy is a natural method of gov-
ernment wherever men who know one another
meet as neighbors. Even in Russia, under the
most autocratic system of imperial rule, the local
machinery still preserves the forms of democracy.

While, however, village and country people have
long been accustomed to certain kinds of common
activity and have learned to manage their local
affairs better than any outside authority could
manage for them, the range of this communal
action has generally been very limited. Take, for
example, the case of a New England town in the
colonial period. There was little public property
in such a town. The roads were bad. Even toll-
roads between important centres of population
were built and maintained by private enterprise.
Bridges over any considerable rivers were a means
of private gain. Schoolhouses, where they existed
at all, were of little cost and poorly equipped.

319

320 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The isolation of the homes of the country popu-
lation of America, noticeable to this day, is in it-
self a mark of the singular individuality and
independence of the people. It is as if the com-
mon motto was : Let each man mind his own busi-
ness. Thus on an old-fashioned farm almost every
kind of work went on. The farmer was his own
carpenter and builder. His wife spun and wove
the family clothing from the wool of her own
sheep. With the least possible subdivision of in-
dustries there could only be the slightest use of
cooperative enterprise.

Meantime, the conditions of urban life have
taken a rapid extension into the country and
promise irrevocably to change farm Ufe from its
old isolation into close forms of association. A
progressive town must now have as good roads as
a city. Costly macadamized highways have been
proved to be economical. Their cost is a com-
munal investment which adds immediately to the
productive power and the selling value of the
farms. The modern town often owns a common
water supply and lights its roads at night. Its
school organization is meant to give the children
of its people hardly less complete educational ad-
vantages than their city cousins enjoy. In many

LOCAL DEiMOCRACY 321

cases adjoining towns combine to employ a com-
mon superintendent of schools. Hundreds of
towns maintain public libraries free to all the
people. It is becoming evident that it was an
error ever to let the forests go out of the hands of
the people to become private property. Thus in
various ways the communal activities have become,
and are still becoming, far larger, more elaborate,
and more expensive than country people ever be-
fore dreamed of operating together. Moreover,
the more people accomplish together, the more
they learn of the astonishing possibilities of the
productiveness of cooperative enterprises.

The country towns are in danger of following
at least one bad example which the cities have
set them. This is the effort to procure whatever
they desire by borrowing money. The fact is, that
in a country town there is a great deal of unused or
idle energy of men and horses, especially at
certain seasons of the year. The people have yet
to learn to employ and direct this power, that now
goes largely to waste, into the channels of public
utility. Thus, there is no town which might
not build and maintain excellent highways and
bridges, and even erect suitable schoolhouses,
without incurring any new permanent debt

322 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

There seems to be everywhere some kind of
natural limit to the desirability of public and
communal enterprise. It may not be easy to
draw a line and say : At such a point commu-
nal action ceases to be profitable. But it looks
as if this elusive and possibly shifting point were
always present ; and it is the business of society
by patient experiments to find where it is. There
are cooperative enterprises which from their na-
ture call upon all the people to bear the burden
and undertake them together in their cooperative
capacity. There are other enterprises which
seem to depend upon individual initiative and per-
sonal leadership, and which are apt to languish
and lose their vitality as soon as the hand of
officialism touches them. We do not want an
official or communal religion, or system of medi-
cine, or a state board of control of art and music.
In all the higher range of human effort it is prob-
able that the breath of freedom and individu-
alism is essential to progress and excellence.
The country towns, with this proper freedom of
local option, have an excellent opportunity to try
useful experiments — both in communal and vol-
untary action.

Mankind is only beginning to learn how vastly

LOCAL DEMOCRACY 323

the production, and the quaHty also, in almost every
department of thought and activity, may be in-
creased by skilful direction and quite voluntary
cooperative effort. The best individuaHsm is to-
day learning to be social. The story of the ad-
vance of science illustrates this. The cooperation
of scientific men with one another has been quite
free of external dictation, but it has been none the
less real and important. It is precisely this free
type of industrial cooperation which we need to
see in the country towns. The cities have carried
it to its extreme limit. The country has never had
enough of it.

In other words, we look to see among the farm-
ers and in the country a movement of growth
in industrial democracy, — that is, in acting and
working together, — quite as great as has already
been made in managing communal interests to-
gether. We look, moreover, to see this develop-
ment on a perfectly free basis. It will follow lines
which already appear, and upon which encourag-
ing movement has been made in many quarters.
Industrial democracy or cooperation will do for the
country people what the close organization of
urban life has already done for the cities. If
civilization is the art of living together, the coming

324 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

cooperative movement in the industrial life of the
country will be a distinct uplift in civilization. It
will also promise to be more thoroughly democratic
than urban civiUzation as yet is.

The misfortune of the countryman hitherto has
been that he has had to be largely a lonely
worker. Meantime a new science of agriculture
is coming in, which changes everything and com-
pels farmers to come out of their isolation and to
join hands with one another. The farmer can no
longer live on his own products ; he must special-
ize ; he must enter into the world of relations
where he will be bound up with the interests of
people in Cuba and Manchuria. He must get his
goods, cotton, wheat, or apples to market, perhaps
across the sea. He must know the most approved
methods of using his soil and not waste his efforts ;
he must have the best seed and stock. He must
often have the use of costly machinery, like the
cotton-gin, or the reaping-machine, which the
individual himself may not be able to procure.

These new conditions require combination and
cooperation. The farmers' granges are a means
of getting and sharing new knowledge. The ex-
tension of the meteorological bureau and agricultu-
ral experiment stations are means for putting the

LOCAL DEMOCRACY 325

resources of the nation at the disposal of the farmer.
The free rural delivery and the telephone service
bring the latest results of expert study, along with
warnings against sudden storms or frost, within
every man's reach. They also bring neighbors
into close touch with each other and add indefi-
nitely to the possibilities of neighborly activity.

Even in the long-abused and rack-rented country
districts of Ireland we hear of promising enter-
prises brought about through the cooperation of
the hitherto poor and isolated farmers. They are
learning to make excellent butter and cheese in
cooperative dairies ; where before their products
were hardly worth sending to market, they are
establishing societies for raising and marketing
eggs and poultry ; they are introducing the admi-
rable German system of farmers* banks, enabling
poor men successfully to borrow money at reason-
able interest for their necessary tools, stock, and
improvements, by the use of the common credit
for honesty and character which the entire group
of men combined in the bank contribute together.
Here is genuine democracy at work to alter the
face of the most poverty-stricken districts. It will
be a shame if American farmers cannot adopt
such measures for mutual help. Are they too

326 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

prosperous, or too individualistic, not to see that
in union is strength ?

Meanwhile there is a revival of interest in many
old towns in the trades which ought always to go
alongside of agricultural enterprise. Arts and
crafts societies are fostering these characteristic
country trades, — beautiful needlework, rug mak-
ing, fine cabinet making, decorative ironwork, and
such other trades as can be advantageously carried
on by skilled hands and without the use of great
power. The purpose is that the country people
shall find pleasurable and intelligent use for other-
wise idle time, shall increase their resources and
income, and shall develop skill and artistic enjoy-
ment. The key to all this is in a kind of coopera-
tive effort which happily brings townspeople and
city people closer together. ^

The village improvement societies serve as
another illustration of the new movement through
which people are feeling their way together in

1 In the city of Boston a " Town Room," consisting of a
library and museum, has been provided by the generosity of Joseph
Lee, in cooperation with the Twentieth Century Club, where all
manner of information, with photographs and illustrations, may
be found, bearing upon the betterment, the beautifying, and the
enrichment of country life.

LOCAL DEMOCRACY 32/

various voluntary efforts to bring beauty and
gladness into their lives.

Moreover, every cooperative effort, whatever its
motive may be at the start, presently works to
socialize, moralize, and civilize men. Working
together, they learn to trust one another and they
become more trustworthy. They learn to find, to
value, and to develop those moral qualities of
fidelity, truth, patience, and good will which are at
the same time the qualities that bind men together
in political society. Working together, meeting
and discussing in their granges, in their dairy
companies, in their banks, without distinction of
party, race, or religion, but simply for their com-
mon benefit, they learn to get rid of factions, preju-
dices, and jealousies, and they are sure to become
more effective fellow-citizens.

Town and local government will everywhere
improve as fast as the country people widen the
range of the common enterprises. The more
things which they learn to do together by quite
voluntary association, the better they will be able
to perform those public functions in which it is
the manifest duty of every one to participate, and
from the obligation of which no one ought really to
wish to escape.

328 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Thus there is a constant natural and voluntary
discipline on the side of man's social or collective
life, by which he becomes fitted for doing his will-
ing part as a citizen in the communal or public
life. The farmers have a specially good field for
working out this admirable discipline. It is doubt-
ful if men ever make really good citizens without
having learned the lessons of public spirit and
cooperative action in the free school, the neighbor-
hood, the church, the grange, the dairy or poultry
association, the village improvement society, and
other simple forms of free mutual union, where
their loyalty and good sense are constantly called
for in behalf of the common good.

From time immemorial the life of cities has been
refreshed from the country. The cities still need
new blood more than they are able to make for
themselves. They will always look to the country
for men and women of enterprise, courage, re--
sourcefulness, skill, and moral integrity. It may
be that the cities will look again to the country
towns to be taught the art of good government.
Why should not country life, with its new advan-
tages, its increasing wealth, its improved educa-
tion, continue to be the best possible school for a
happy democracy }

XXVI

THE NEW IMMIGRATION

Many people are frightened at the rapid and
enormous immigration into the United States. We
are told that within forty years, that is, hardly
more than a single generation, sixteen millions of
new people have come to live in our country, and
mostly in the Northern and Western states. As
many as one million have come in a single year.
This is equivalent to a form of invasion. We are
reminded of those mysterious movements of tribes
and peoples which at various times in the past
have changed the course of history, as, for ex-
ample, when the Roman Empire waked up to find
itself in the hands of new rulers, — Franks and
Germans and Goths.

The earliest immigration to the United States
was mostly of English stock. Up to the time of
the American Revolution the population of the
colonies was fairly homogeneous and generally
Protestant in religion. Presently the Irish Catho-
lics came, but they had a common language with

329

330 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

the previous settlers. Then came the Germans
with a foreign tongue, but with instincts and tradi-
tions akin to the Anglo-Saxon peoples. Now at
last the new populations are from the most distant
provinces of Europe and even from Armenia and
Syria. They are people who have never been
used to acting together even in their native lands,
and much less to the exercise of self-government.
Many of them have been subject to grievous op-
pression, and have become accustomed to look
upon all government and authority sometimes with
blind fear, and again with suspicion and hate.

The newest immigrants are the poorest of all.
They frequently land without bringing any prop-
erty or money beyond their immediate necessities.
They have little education or skill or aptitude for
a strange environment. They settle in the first
great city which they reach and add at once to the
stress of competition in the most overcrowded
trades, like garment making. There is no ques-
tion but that the problem of fair wages would be
far nearer to a solution, were it not complicated at
every step by a throng of new applicants for em-
ployment at every centre of labor. The new im-
migrants from Canada, from Hungary, from Italy,
from Finland, from Poland, press into mines and

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 33 1

factories and practically underbid and displace
their predecessors in the march, such as Irish and
Welsh and native Americans, and thus indirectly
increase the pressure in other kinds of work. No
industrial or political scheme can take over one
miUion hungry people in a year without untold
suffering, both to those who come and to those who
were on the ground before them.

Moreover, upon the Pacific coast of the United
States, already the vanguard of a Chinese and a
Japanese invasion is visible. Contrary to the gen-
eral traditions and principles of the American
people, the gates have been violently closed in the
face of the incoming Chinamen, and the new cry
begins to be heard, despite our admiration of the
intelligence and the courage of the Japanese, to
shut the doors against their coming also. We are
fairly afraid of a people who know how to work,
to fight, to be artistic, to live " the simple life " on
less than a quarter of a dollar a day. How pre-
posterous it is, men begin to say, to raise a high
tariff wall to protect the manufactures of a few of
the people from the competition of underpaid for-
eign nations, while all the time these very peoples
pour into our country and crowd and jostle our own
citizens in every labor market !

332 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The problem of immigration is still more compli-
cated by the situation in the South, where nine
millions of negroes, mostly illiterate and unskilled,
with the cruel brand of slavery yet on their souls,
multiplying in every decade, threaten eventually to
spread northward and bring squalor with them
wherever cheap labor is wanted. Let no one
dream that the assimilation of all races and reli-
gions into a harmonious and happy people is a
light task to contemplate.

It should be observed that the apprehensions
about the coming of new people is a very old cry
even in America. It was raised almost as early as
the founding of the town of Boston, when Gov-
ernor Winthrop was alarmed at the ship-loads of
his own English countrymen who threatened soon
quite to outnumber the sober church-members, the
elect citizens of the young commonwealth.

The cry of fear was raised again when the Irish
came, and presently took possession of the old
houses of " first families " in New York and Bos-
ton. The fear of the stranger is as old as history.
It runs with jealousy, selfishness, and all inhuman-
ity. There are always men who want to raise an
issue on sectarian, puritan, jingo, or racial lines,
and so to keep men apart. And some profound

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 333

irresistible law, like a vast plough, forever goes
its way, breaking through men's little divisions,
blurring their lines of color and nation and class,
and compelling them to learn to live together
humanely.

It may be conceded that the flow of new popu-
lation into the United States involves discomfort
and pain. All changes usually involve discomfort.
The immigration has doubtless been too rapid.
The most that can be said for a tariff system is
that it acts for a time like an artificial Stimulus. It
has not only fostered certain favored industries ; it
has also stimulated competition for work and hur-
ried multitudes of people to America who under
more normal conditions would have remained at
home.

It does not follow, because we are perplexed for
the present to know how to distribute our new
populations happily, that they will not prove in the
end just as valuable as any other element in our
complex nationality. It is marvellous, even now,
to see how well, upon the whole, the men of diverse
creeds and races are learning to get on together.
Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Jews, do
not fight with each other. It is almost impossible
to imagine, so long as we maintain an atmosphere

334 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of liberty, that they can ever wish to oppress one
another. They are daily learning lessons of mutual
respect ; they are compelled to work, to act, to con-
sult, and to vote together. The use of a common
tongue, the common traditions and teachings of
the public schools, the slow but natural process of
intermarriage, are all working to reduce the Old
World jealousies, and the dialects that expressed
them, to the terms of a single and growingly homo-
geneous nationality. What native stock or race
can any one prove to be disadvantageous to this
coming unity !

Those who know their new neighbors least are
most apt to speak ill of them. They who barely
hear of Poles and Finns and Greeks are afraid of
them. But those who best know each of the races
who are seen in our streets, — the teachers, the
settlement workers, even the policemen, assure us
that they are extremely human and essentially
like the rest of us. Do they tell falsehoods and
cheat in a trade ? So do certain lords of finance
who hold their heads up in fashionable churches.
Do they vote in a crowd ? So do all partisans fol-
lowing their particular bell-wethers. Do they live
squahdly ? So not many generations ago did the
ancestors of all of us. Are there mean and selfish

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 335

persons among them ? So, by universal testimony,
there are generous, true-hearted, and kindly per-
sons. Are they averse to work and too much
inclined to live by their wits ? This is a common
complaint among all kinds and conditions of men.
We pass laws to exclude the Chinese, but every
Chinaman who is here appears to be wanted. We
regret the blunder and greed that brought slaves
here from Africa, but every Southern white man
wants the negro to work for him. There is no
objection to his labor, because his wages are low.
The South would not agree to return the negro to
Africa, if the task were possible. Who would raise
and pick ten million bales of cotton, if there were
no black hands to labor ?

Men sometimes foolishly talk as if there were
so much work to be done, no more and no less, and
so much money to be divided in the form of wages.
In this view the newcomer seems to take the
bread out of the mouth of the natives. But a
moment's reflection shows that every able-bodied
man is a natural producer. In the long run he
will find employment. He is an exceptional or
bad man if he is not worth all that he costs. Is
there the slightest doubt that the multitudes of
our new population are adding to the general

336 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

wealth of the country? Do they not mine coal
and iron, and manufacture steel and cotton cloth
and garments and shoes ? It is already a matter
of general misgiving whether they are paid enough
for what they do ! Meanwhile, they create on
every hand a fresh economic demand for every-
thing which the country can supply. New houses,
new railroads and cars, new furniture, new cloth-
ing, are called for. New loans are actually put on
the market to build schoolhouses to educate their
children. Where indeed do the colossal fortunes
come from and the princely salaries, except out
of the immense growth of all human 'enterprise,
which ministers to the housing, transporting, and
feeding of new populations, and which this new
population in turn actually pays for ? What
rich man, who, after having helped to make the
demand for Italians and Poles to work for him,
and then presently apprehends ruin to the country
from their presence here, is not a richer man for
that very fact ?

It is said that the newcomers have pushed out
the native stock. It is possible that by the subtle
working of the conditions that rule the birth-rate,
their coming has checked the increase of the
earlier stock. No one can be sure of this.

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 337

But what has become of the men of this much-
wanted native stock ? No one has been massacred
in the course of this peaceful invasion. You will
find the native Americans to a very large extent at
the head of all manner of lucrative businesses.
You will often find them living in luxury out of
the proceeds of their fathers' houses and gardens
and farms, which they have sold or rented to the
newcomers. You will find also the children of
the earlier tides of immigration, whose coming the
timid ones apprehended, educated in our schools,
and climbing up into the places of responsibility
and leadership in business and politics. Do they
not behave as well as their " Yankee " brothers
behave under similar conditions ? Let us not
be afraid of the human nature which we all
share.

Who now are we, whose own fathers came to
America, some driven by religious persecution,
some urged by their love of liberty, and others
simply to better their condition, that we should
put up barriers to forbid other men coming here
for the same reasons that brought us ? Or, on
what lines shall we exclude "the unfit" and allow
the fit to enter ? Americans cannot bar men out
because they are poor, as if poverty were a crime.

338 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

We, among whom many languages are spoken,
cannot shut our doors against those who cannot
speak English. We cannot decently put up a
color line, when millions of our legal citizens are
black. It has been our continual boast that we
could feed hundreds of millions of people on our
ample domain. Does a mere dim sense of fear
warrant us in discountenancing men who wish to
come to the United States ? And is this in any
sense to be called a " Christian " country, if its
people make laws against others, which they
would deem it unfriendly in another nation to
make against themselves ? Why an " open door "
in the East, and a closed door to the United
States .?

Besides candor and intelhgence, the great requi-
site in the study of the problems of immigration
is plenty of sympathy. We may commit blunders
in any case, but the worst blunders will arise from
the want of humanity.

Let us grant, in general, that we cannot reverse
the generous and humane policy which we have
always exercised in admitting the poor and the
oppressed of all nations to America. Let us con-
fess that it is extremely difficult to make restrictive
laws against immigration that would not be un-

i UNIVERSITY

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 339

friendly to the nations with whose governments
we wish to Hve in peace, as well as an insult and
reproach to people who are already living among
us. There are no peoples to whom we can afford
to say, "We are afraid of you." There is no
nation to whose government we can permanently
afford to say, ** We do not dare to let your people
live with us."

We are reminded that we confront a grave situa-
tion. There are points where the inflow of popu-
lation causes real distress, congestion, and even
disease. We cannot be content to see the streets
of our great cities converted into slums and ghettos,
and wretched people either idle or subject to
sweatshops, while we do nothing to ameliorate
the evil. Admit, as we must, that we are made
to suffer this evil by the fault of others, — of a
despot in Constantinople, of autocracy in Russia,
of ages of misrule in Italy, of a system of military
conscription in Germany. We will not be so mean
as to deny the bond of the common humanity
which compels us to share the sorrow of the
world and to try to cure it.

There are certain conditions which simple in-
telligence and good will urge upon us. So far
as excessive immigration is fostered by the ex-

340 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

aggerated advertisements and inducements of
steamship companies and real estate speculators,
who picture America as a species of El Dorado,
we are bound to offset these efforts of corporate
greed by some comprehensive system of public
information in the countries from which emigrants
come. When general business is dull in the United
States and employment is difficult to find, why
should not the facts be published as a warning
wherever advertisements of American prosperity
are exhibited ? Why should not our new Depart-
ment of Commerce see to it that intending emi-
grants from Poland or Hungary are kindly advised
and directed ? They ought to know the fact, if
Philadelphia and New York have no work for
them to do. They ought to have guidance, if
they are really wanted in Iowa. The companies
use agents to promote immigration. Why should
not the people employ agents to caution immi-
grants against bitter disappointment ? What work
at our numerous foreign consulates is more im-
portant than this ? Whenever a million workmen
are out of employment in the United States, the
fact ought to be published in all the ports of the
world.

It may also be presumed that the various

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 34 1

governments are open to friendly remonstrance and
to just cooperation with us to prevent the sick,
the crippled, the insane, the helpless, from com-
ing to suffer in a strange land and to become
charges on our people. Reasonable regulations
in this direction, while they affect no large num-
bers, are obviously fair on both sides. We prob-
ably have laws enough on this point at present.
The difficulty to be overcome is in the application
of such laws so that they may be effective, while
working no hardship or cruelty. It will be the
general instinct of our people to prefer to use
and interpret the regulations upon immigration
generously and in no stingy or harsh form. We
mainly wish not to be imposed upon and made
a dumping ground for certain classes of unfortu-
nate people for whom their own neighbors and
their government are properly responsible. We
desire to be honestly hospitable, but we want
our hospitality to be of actual use to those to
whom we extend it.

Another reasonable check against too rapid
immigration is suggested by the fact of the terrible
and unhygienic overcrowding to which our great
cities are now subjected. For every humane rea-
son men and women ought not to be suffered

342 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to be housed as hundreds of thousands are now
housed in New York tenements. There should
be some reasonable limit beyond which the crowd-
ing of families or boarders into a house cannot
be permitted. No city can afford to let men
live and die, much less to permit children to suffer
in damp, dark, and foul quarters, the perennial
breeding place of consumption and other diseases.
So long as human greed and selfishness are suf-
fered to maintain these shameful conditions, no
one is safe from physical, moral, and political
contamination.

It is impossible, however, to overcome the evils
of our overcrowded cities merely by domestic or
local legislation. Greed and selfishness begin their
work beyond the seas. Thoughtless steamship
managers hurry their freightage of poor immi-
grants ashore at Ellis Island without asking the
question where these ignorant people will find
lodging, shelter, or employment. A fair and ra-
tional rule ought to arise naturally out of the
facts of this situation. It is this : that the steam-
ship companies should be obliged for a reasonable
time to share the responsibility with the public for
the suitable reception, with decent lodging or hous-
ing, of the steerage passengers whom they bring

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 343

to our ports, and especially those who have wives
and children.

Thus, if immigrants come here without money
to keep them, and with no friends to welcome
them and help them to be placed and to get work,
the transportation companies should be required
to bear a liberal share of the cost necessary for
finding homes and employment. If within a year
after their arrival any of these unfortunate people
are discovered to be living in squalor and breaking
the sanitary rules which forbid the overcrowding
of tenements, the companies should be called upon
to share in whatever expense is required to render
the condition of the newcomers tolerable.

It might well be that such legislation should
urge upon the great companies increased care at
both ends : in learning that the passengers were
fit persons to be brought to this country, and that
they were fully informed as to the difficult eco-
nomic conditions to which they would be subject
here ; and again, in maintaining friendly agencies
in our ports so as to look after the comfort and
welfare of the people whom they have assisted
in bringing over.

It might well be that the companies should be
obliged to help to provide for the distribution of

344 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

immigrants in country districts considerable dis-
tances from the usual ports of entry or through
new ports. The chief difficulty in the problem of
immigration is not that numerous immigrants come
to America, but that the stream of immigration is
blocked and congested in a few centres of popu-
lation.

It might come to pass, as it has already been
proposed to Congress, that communities in the
West and South needing new population should
be encouraged by law to keep their trained agents
at the great ports, with the purpose of directing
and assisting immigrants to the point where lands
are cheap and labor is in demand.

Up to the present time, in our treatment of the
new immigration, we seem almost literally to have
done those things which we ought not to have
done and to have failed to do those things which
we ought to have done. We have actually enacted
restrictive legislation to prevent those immigrants
from being landed for whom employers are ready
to provide regular employment, and only to al-
low those to come who have no employment in
advance ! This extraordinary law surely works
cruelty. It would be fairer altogether to forbid
the landing of people, for the lodging or housing

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 345

of whom it is necessary to break the tenement-
house laws and to turn the homes into slums.
Better yet, make it against the interest of the com-
panies to take steerage fares from any wretched
people for the humane reception of whom on
our shores they have not as much ground of ex-
pectation as they would have in the case of ship-
wrecked mariners.

The steerage passengers indeed are not brought
here as men, the equals with others in democratic
society, but rather as peasants or peons, on whom,
herded together like sheep, the favored classes look
down from the upper deck. It has been suggested
that an effectual mode of limiting emigration would
consist in the requirement that steamship com-
panies should provide distinctly more humane and
therefore more expensive steerage accommodations.
This might be defended in the interest of humanity.

The truth is, our treatment of immigrants is not
that of men who welcome their fellows in the
spirit of humanity. Neither do the immigrants
come of their own free will, but because of harsh
and abnormal economic or political conditions. It
is even doubtful whether their removal here helps
permanently to relieve the crowded and distressed
conditions of their native lands.

346 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

While, then, we shrink from the harshness of
forcibly returning any class of immigrants to the
wretchedness from which they may have fled, we
must set up our guard against the pitiless working
of the forces which urge them to come here in
ignorance of almost every condition requisite for
their ready assimilation into our body politic.
It is idle to talk vaguely of our free country and
the natural rights of men to go wherever they
please. The fact remains that it is an enormous
task to receive a million immigrants in a year in
a manner worthy of a free and humane people.

What shall we say, finally, as regards the tre-
mendous possibilities of Oriental immigration ? The
danger in this direction is not from individual Jap-
anese or Chinese who may wish to come to Amer-
ica as bona fide settlers or colonists. The danger
is from the capitalists who are seeking to bring
ship-loads of coolies and peons, as men once im-
ported slaves. The conditions of this immigration
are commercial rather than human. While it is
hard to see how the democracy can consistently
put up restrictions against the free immigration of
men of whatever race, we may justly be forced to
interfere with a form of traffic that handles men
as merchandise. It follows that whatever laws

THE NEW IMMIGRATION 347

must be passed to meet an anomalous and artificial
situation, the interpretation of such laws should be
broad, generous, and humane, not narrow, harsh,
and cruel, as in the case of the operation of the
present Chinese exclusion acts.

Grant even the utmost that any one can fear,
that natural physiological laws forbid the blending
of the distinct races of mankind; grant therefore
— what has never yet been proved — the fact of a
natural decree that the separate races had better
live apart, each under its own form of political organ-
ization, and not too closely together under one rule.
The great human bond still obviously holds and
binds all races together ; it is the more necessary
that they know each other, that they shall travel
and trade and visit each other freely, and that their
relations shall be governed by the principles of
mutual faith and good will, not by suspicion, fear,
contempt, or arrogance. But who knows that the
grand experiment of different races living together
under equal laws, an experiment which the world
is now trying on a vast scale, will not prove under
favorable conditions to work for the advantage
of all.?

The presumption is surely not in the direction
of men's fears and their divisions, but rather in

348 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

favor of their common hopes and their essential
unity. For the differences among the races of
men are on the surface, while their likenesses lie
deep in their nature. These likenesses, moreover,
become more evident the more men grow toward
complete humanity.

XXVII

THE LABOR UNIONS

It is not strange that the labor unions have
incurred both praise and blame. Some of the
keenest criticism of their methods has come from
the side of good democracy.

It is true that, in the long run and viewed pro-
foundly, the interests of all who are associated in
industry, employers and employed, are identical,
and that neither party can suffer or prosper with-
out the loss or the advantage of the other. But
this is not the immediate and superficial view of
the relation of the two parties. They doubtless
seem at first to have opposing interests. People
of slender intelligence surmise that the gain of
one party in a bargain must somehow come out
of the loss of the other. They imagine a limited
fund out of which wages and profits are drawn.
The more the wages the less they think the profits
must be. As if business were a bare and simple
mechanical process, and not a vastly complicated
scheme of vital relations!

It is conceivable that under the conditions of a
349

350 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

truly civilized world the working of the principle
of "competition " might set prices, values, wages,
and salaries, without injustice or oppression on the
one hand, or without waste and extravagance on
the other. No one has ever invented any other
principle by which even rudely to assess values.
We can conceive that the competition of civilized
people would thus be a species of emulation or
effort, to do thorough, skilful, and efficient work,
and to render admirable service. We are very far
from such a degree of civilization. There is quite
too much competition to get returns, whether by
profit or wages, without giving an honest equiva-
lent. Indeed, the word " competition " in many
minds has almost been spoiled by this use, as if
it had no other meaning.

It is not so much the law of competition,
crudely as it is as yet applied, that brings the ne-
cessity of unions among working-men, as it is
the peculiar and perhaps transient conditions of
modern industrial life. We see enormous aggre-
gations of capital and businesses that each employ
thousands of men. Armies of workmen can be
transported to order from point to point. While
custom-house officers keep guard against foreign
products, the cheapest labor can be imported in

THE LABOR UNIONS 35 1

any quantity. We see industrial enterprises, coal
mines and factories, launched and new towns built
to house the workers, and then suddenly we
behold enormous wreckage and waste, and the
workers are scattered. The access to work for
millions of men means not merely the possession
of adequate strength or of skill, but the use of
costly tools and mechanical power. At the same
time the miners and the factory or railway
workers have become differentiated, each group
by themselves, and have no skill except for their
one kind of toil. If they wished to quit the towns
and live upon the land, there is no land free to
take up. If there were free land, they have no
tools or stock or shelter to begin a new form of
work.

Meanwhile for multitudes of workers there is
no longer any immediateness of relation with the
people who employ them. The men never see
their employers, who may live hundreds of miles
away from the scene of work. The employers are
not men, but corporations of men. While prob-
ably there never was an age of greater humanity
than ours, while there were never so many per-
sons of wealth with a sense of responsibility and
the desire to do justice to their fellows, yet busi-

352 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

ness and industry have taken on a marvellously
impersonal aspect. Employers and employed feel
as if they were enmeshed in the coils of a huge
system. The kindest of employers is not quite
free, but he is bound by the will of others ; he is
even a sort of servant of a directorate ; he is one
in a combination of great concerns, under agree-
ment to go with a certain common movement, to
fix prices, to dictate terms, to set or alter wages.

The abler workmen, the skilful, the industri-
ous, the progressive, and intelligent, might even
yet have no need of protecting themselves by a
union. There are never enough of this more
capable class. They might be able always to
take care of themselves. But this class was
never so near the line of dependence as it is
to-day. In earlier times these masters of their
several trades usually had their own kits of tools ;
they had to knock at the doors of no colossal
factories to obtain leave to use the mechanical
power necessary for performing their work.

Unfortunately the majority of the men in any
trade, as in any profession, are not highly skilled
and capable and ready to adjust themselves to
new conditions. As mere individuals they are
more or less helpless. In a mining town, or at

THE LABOR UNIONS 353

the Stock-yards in Chicago, they may not be able
to read or understand the language of their em-
ployers. Their natural means of protection is in
union. Organize them together, let them choose
leaders, committees, spokesmen ; let them do for
their common interests, as workmen, precisely
what their employers do by their great combi-
nations of capital. Can any one see objection
to this course? "In union is strength." This is
especially true for those who work and live close
to the danger line of hunger. Hundreds of thou-
sands of families in America are always living
without as much as a week's wages in advance.
No opponent of the labor unions can deny that
they have incidentally done much good. They con-
stitute a great insurance society, thus safeguard-
ing their members against the too frequent periods
of sickness, accident, or unemployment. They
have afforded a remarkably successful means of
learning some of the great lessons of democracy
and cooperation, for people who had enjoyed little,
if any, training in this direction. Men and women
of different nationaUties and creeds have learned
to deliberate and to act together. They have dis-
covered for perhaps the first time what the value
of a vote is. They have learned to practise self-

354 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

control, to make sacrifices, and to forego the
indulgence of their individual wills in obedience
to their regard for the common welfare. The
unions have also been indispensable means in
securing for large groups of people increased
wages, shorter hours of work, and more decent
and humane conditions. They have brought press-
ure directly upon their employers, and indirectly
upon public opinion. They have had a consider-
able share also in making necessary laws.

Grant, if one pleases, that under quite free com-
petition the general tendency is toward industrial
justice. The truth is, that there is no such theo-
retical freedom in our present world. As long as
the representatives of capital go unblushingly to all
legislatures and to Congress to ask favors and to
obtain protection for themselves, the men who
have only their labor or their skill to sell, must
also exert themselves and secure needful legisla-
tion, in order to adjust the balance, which, so far
in human history, has always tended to stay on
the side of the holders of property.

Moreover, whereas the laws proposed in the
interest of capitalists have always been apt to
inure only to the advantage of the few, the labor
laws have tended to be for the public welfare.

THE LABOR UNIONS 355

Thus it is for the public health that work shall
not be suffered to go on in the squalid conditions
of the sweat-shop. It is for the broad public good
that children shall not be allowed to waste their
lives in mines and factories. It is for the pubHc
safety that railroads shall not work men to exhaus-
tion. It is really more to the public advantage
and the general wealth that wages shall be as
large as possible, than that profits and dividends
and the interest rate shall be high. However
hopeless it may be to fix wages by law, no country
can prosper where such conditions are tolerated
as to degrade any considerable population below
that level of decency, roughly styled " the living
wage."

So much by way of suggestion as to the actual
usefulness of the labor unions. It is hard to see
how any one can be so thoughtless and unfair as
to be willing to see unions of every other kind,
including great corporations and trusts, and not to
encourage the federations of labor.

On the other hand, the labor unions have doubt-
less hitherto mainly followed the exclusive and
militant, rather than the cooperative and humane
type of democracy. The prevalent idea unfortu-
nately is that society is composed of two antago-

356 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

nistic classes. There is too frequent appeal to class
consciousness and class jealousy. They do not
yet know the alphabet of American democracy
who divide men on the basis of the "haves" and
the ** have-nots." The only valid distinction is
between those who wish to get more than they
give, and those who desire to render at least an
honest equivalent for whatever they receive.

The typical labor union has in fact suffered
from the current methods that still infest business
and politics. The men in charge of the unions
have " played their game " exactly as others were
playing a similar game in railroad directors' meet-
ings, in stock exchanges, in the lobbies of state-
houses, in the chambers of legislation. There is
no fault on account of which we complain of the
unions which we may not trace to the group of
men who have opposed the unions, — the very
men who, if they had been good and wise enough,
should have met the unions cordially and cooper-
ated with them for the advantage of all.

The unions have suffered from unscrupulous
leaders, from " grafters " like Parks, who have
extorted and taken bribes at the hands of employ-
ers unscrupulous enough to offer to buy them.
The unions have sometimes been guilty of restrict-

THE LABOR UNIONS 357

ing production, thus lessening the common pros-
perity which all share. They have simply followed
the lead of employers, who have always been first
in the field to give plausible reasons for this policy.
The unions have been inconsiderate of the public
and have waged industrial war in the public streets.
They have involved whole cities in sympathetic
strikes. The militarists have always done the
same. Small thought have they ever had for the
rights of neutrals !

It is not surprising that the unions have not
been altogether democratic within themselves.
They have shown the dangerous Old World ten-
dency to play the part of the tyrant. Their officers
have sometimes been trusted with too much author-
ity. Uncommon opportunity has been offered for
demagogues as against more modest and reason-
able members. Their majorities have too often
abused their power and overridden or suppressed
reputable minorities. It is an open secret that
their most thoughtful men are not brought to the
front, or represented in their councils, and are, in
fact, far from cordial in their membership. This
is exactly the description, with a little change of
words, of both of the great American political
parties. The vices of the unions are only com-

358 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

mon vices of men at a certain stage of develop-
ment.

The militant character of the unions is nowhere
so obvious as in their attitude toward non-union
men. Not only the common laws, but the princi-
ples of justice and humanity, have to suffer strain
in order to afford justification for the policy of the
unions toward the men who for various reasons
refuse to join them. The ultimate democratic
idea of voluntary cooperation is here set aside.
The union now ceases to be a friendly association ;
it becomes an army with the assumed right of
intimidation and impressment.

It must not be forgotten that there are always
men (and they are good democrats and Ameri-
cans) who would not and could not conscientiously
join any organization which would require them to
stand out in an unjust or foolish strike or lockout.

Moreover, it is unbearable that any body of men
in the state should be pledged (especially by a
form of secret promise or oath) to allegiance to
their own officers and in their own interest, to the
neglect of the paramount duties which they owe
in behalf of the general welfare. This is to prefer
the service of a part to the good of the whole, to
set up a new sovereignty within the nation, and so

THE LABOR UNIONS 359

to deny the principles of democratic government.
Sympathize then as we may with the objects which
the miUtant union has in view, suspect the ** scab " if
we must of being a rather mean fellow, neverthe-
less the theory, the methods, and the spirit of mili-
tarism have always proved to be, and always must
naturally be, a menace to true and permanent de-
mocracy. If war, whether political or industrial,
ever seems to further the development of civiliza-
tion, it is at best always like the fever, through the
pain and cost of which the need of cleanliness is
forced home upon the ignorant. We pity them
that they do not know and obey the laws which
would forbid the fever. So when men wage in-
dustrial war upon one another, we deplore the
slowness with which they learn the simple laws of
humanity.

It will sometime be found out that the unions
make no lasting gain by the outworn methods
of strife and compulsion. Every injustice that
the unions commit, whether to the public or the
employers, or to the non-union men, immediately
reacts in the form of aggrieved public opinion.
Injustice is divisive, and tends to break up the
unions. Oppressive trusts and monopolies belong
to a regime that already is doomed. Let them do

360 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

injustice if they dare; the sooner they come to an
end. But the unions, springing out of the heart
of the people, are bound to be democratic; they
cannot afford to permit the semblance of in-
humanity. Their natural atmosphere is freedom.
Let this fail and men cease to have use for them.
The labor unions have instinctively followed the
tendency of the times in attempting enormous
and even continental aggregations of membership.
There is involved in this movement a peril of over-
centralization. So far as great combinations,
whether of states or corporations or unions, are
freely held together by the bond of good will and
of common interests, they can evidently promote
efficiency throughout the whole body of associates.
Their danger lies in the fact that too great author-
ity is apt to be delegated to distant centres of
control, and lodged in the hands of men whose
characters are unequal to their burden of responsi-
bility. The heads of a colossal organization, a
republic or a federation of labor, being lifted
above the shafts of criticism, are tempted to put
on the airs and pride of kings. There is a curious
and subtle disposition in men who are trusted with
power, to play the lord over others and to coerce
the unwilling. It is the instinct of democracy

THE LABOR UNIONS 36 1

to resist the approach of every sort of close,
inelastic, and military organization of society.

It must never be forgotten that the unions only
embrace a moiety of the people of any country.
Their scope is naturally somewhat limited to those
trades and occupations, such as mines, railroads,
and wholesale manufactories, which require and
mass together large numbers of workmen. It is
hardly conceivable that the whole body of the
workers of a nation could be bound and held to-
gether in unions. Or, if this came about, it would
seem to involve a scheme of state socialism.

The number of small businesses, even in these
days of the growth of vast corporations, is said
steadily to increase. An immense portion of the
work of the world does not concern itself with the
production of staples and bare necessaries, — steel
rails and cotton cloth, — but with all varieties of
things of comfort and art, befitting a complex civil-
ized life. Multitudes of men are engaged in raising
or making specialties. Multitudes are, and must be,
scattered in villages and through agricultural re-
gions, — market gardeners, florists, the makers of
"fancy goods." The natural humane and neigh-
borly relations of man with man, and the possibili-
ties of profit sharing and democratic cooperation,

362 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

hold good through all these numerous branches of
industry. There is little need of militant organiza-
tion of labor when employers and employed know-
one another well enough to become friends and
partners.

On the other hand, it has proved extremely
difficult to organize the unskilled into permanent
unions. While the grievances of the very poor
are frequently cited as a justification of the unions,
it is the poor against whom, from the selfish point
of view, the unions seek protection. Men and
women are ever ready to press from the ranks of
the very poor to offer their labor at starvation
wages. The poor and the unskilled furnish recruits
to break strikes. As long as emigration is free, or
as population has its normal increase without far
better education than has yet been devised, the
problem of the poor and the unskilled remains.
The unions evidently cannot take all men who
labor into their membership. The unions, in fact,
represent a sort of caste or aristocracy among the
workers. They often point with pride to the fact
that their members are abler and more trustworthy
than those outside.

People are not accurately divided by any sharp
lines into employers and employed. We are all

THE LABOR UNIONS 363

employers and we are all employees. The same
people are producers and consumers. On one
side it is for a man's advantage that wages — his
own wages — shall be as high as possible. On
many other sides it is for the same man's advan-
tage that general wages shall be reasonably low.
Else the cost of his living will be too great. The
one thing for the advantage of all is, not that
wages be high or low, but that the total product of
all desirable things shall be large and excellent.
This means that every one shall have the oppor-
tunity to exercise his labor or his skill, and every
one shall receive his share of the product.

The industrial health of a community rises with
the number of its consumers, and with the large-
ness and efficiency of their demands. In this
sense every rise in wages, however brought about,
quickens the circulation of the whole industrial
body. This is especially true when the rise in the
wages means a new adjustment, by which a class
of workers, hitherto inadequately provided for, are
given opportunity to make larger demands as con-
sumers. Give the "submerged" millions of the
poor, for example, a rise in wages, and business
of every sort feels the stimulus of a fresh demand;
the gross product of the nation shows an increase.

364 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

On the other hand, the new prosperity cannot last
unless the work for which the increased wages are
paid proves to be honestly worth paying for.
There is no supernatural fund from which men
can draw wages or incomes. The fund is simply
the total of all the values created by human labor,
intelligence, and skill.

Thus, suppose that the labor unions succeeded
indefinitely in cutting down their hours of work
and raising their wages, the point must come at
last when they would fail to render an equivalent
value to industrial society for what they consumed.
It is conceivable that a trade union, for example,
the bricklayers or the plumbers, might for a time
establish a monopoly in a great city and extort
more than their labor was really worth. In this
case the loss to the general body of society might
be even greater than that caused by individual
monopolists like the owners of the Astor estate.

Much is said of the use of methods of arbitra-
tion to settle labor disputes. It would seem funda-
mental that the parties in a disagreement should
meet face to face, or through good-tempered rep-
resentatives, and come to a common understanding
upon the basis of their mutual interest. When, as
in the conduct of a railroad, the pubHc are also

THE LABOR UNIONS 365

concerned in the controversy, the public ought
manifestly to have representation in the proceed-
ings and a voice in giving counsel. By common
consent, this arrangement is often made infor-
mally, as well as by state boards of conciliation.
Ought the state to go farther and, following the
example of New Zealand, require and enforce the
arbitration of labor questions ?

It is doubtful public policy in a democracy to
recognize, and thus to exaggerate, either social,
partisan, or industrial divisions. We wish as little
as possible to admit class distinctions, as between
capitaHsts and workingmen. Neither do we wish,
if we can help it, to call in the authority of the
state to fix either wages or the rate of profit. We
cannot really force men to work against their will.
Neither can we require employers to carry on busi-
ness unwillingly. The whole fabric of business
rests upon a basis of voluntarism. Moreover, the
ordinary courts are open to consider cases of actual
injury.

If, then, we must ever set up special courts of
arbitration, their use ought to be carefully confined
to those quasi-public businesses, the stopping of
which would involve general suffering. Even in
such cases it is not clearly necessary or expedient

366 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

to try to enforce the decision of the arbiters. The
decision of a trusted commission, once awarded,
tends to enforce itself by its simple appeal to jus-
tice and humanity. Public opinion reenforces it.
The presence or the threat of police or soldiers
becomes an insult to the intelhgence of the people
for whose sake arbitration is invoked. It is not the
compulsory feature in the New Zealand method of
arbitration that is important. It is rather the fact
that a regular and peaceable means is provided to
which every one habitually looks, when the clouds
of a labor trouble appear in the sky.

Our conclusion finally is that labor unions, at
least in their militant form, are only a phase or
stage in the coming of true democracy. Men of a
common interest, whether a trade or an art, will
always flock together. But the more civilized a
nation becomes, the less will be the need for men
to associate themselves for attack or defence.

Men are slowly coming to see that the Golden
Rule is actually at the foundation of industry.
Translated into concrete terms it means : Give the
best possible service to .every one. Give the high-
est wages that you can afford. Choose the best
quality in things and expect to pay the honest
prices that excellence deserves. The people who

THE LABOR UNIONS 367

have caught the secret of this rule will never need
to suffer from labor disputes. There are such in-
dividuals already in business. The worst peril of
the militant unionism is that it works to repress
and overawe, and even to injure, these natural
friends of the people.

XXVIII

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY

Unusual concern is felt in many quarters for
the institution of the family. It is recognized that
society is passing through a dangerous transition
period. The astonishing increase in the number
of divorces excites alarm. Thus, in a certain meet-
ing of the Episcopal convention in Boston, in the
face of the expenditure of more than ;?200,C)00,(X)0
a year for militarism against which the convention
had no decisive word to utter, at a time when the
nation is spending a billion dollars a year for its
drink bill, — a fact which caused the convention
no special anxiety, — when the most unscrupulous
selfishness is allowed to bleed the people without
any really earnest protest on the part of religious
bodies, the question of divorce occupied a con-
siderable part of the time of this distinguished
convention.

There is no doubt that there is a light-minded-
ness about marriage which deserves serious study.
There are, however, various possible interpretations

368

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 369

of the facts and figures that cause alarm. These
phenomena do not necessarily prove that the aver-
age happiness in married life in the nineteenth
century is less than in the fourteenth century; that
married life is less pure and faithful in New Eng-
land, with its too high rate of divorce, than in
Scotland where divorces are less frequent ; or even
that the purity of married life is lower in the state
of Maine, with one divorce to six or seven mar-
riages, than in South CaroHna, with its old-time
strictness of divorce legislation. The frequency
of divorce, however deeply we regret it, is probably
to be interpreted as a symptom rather than as an
original social malady. It is doubtless due in part
to a new sensitiveness touching the relations of
married life. Men, and especially women, have be-
come conscious of evils and injustices which they
once suffered hopelessly as a matter of course.

The truth is that all human society is on the
march upward from an aristocratic scheme of or-
ganization to the democratic regime. This great
secular movement demands a readjustment of the
relations of the family. For the institution of the
family has naturally tended to follow the general
aristocratic theory of society, of which the family
itself was the unit.

370 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Humanity has tried all sorts of experiments in
marriage, but the prevailing usage in the line of
the traditions which our Western civilization has
followed, has vested the power and authority with
the father of the family. The famiUar word
" obey," dictated to the woman in the marriage
service, stands for this prevalent usage. Pretty
nearly all legislation up to a recent time confirmed
the same idea. The Bible and especially the
authority of St. Paul were used to confirm this
thought. The family was a little kingdom, of
which the man was sovereign and the wife and
children the subjects.

The incoming spirit of democracy has changed
all this. Democracy emphasizes the importance
of each individual life. It cuts off the heads of
kings and princes and abrogates hereditary privi-
leges. In democratic society each person stands
on his own merits and is respected for what he is
worth, that is, for his genuine manhood or woman-
hood.

Such is the theory, however far men fail to re-
alize it. This then becomes the new theory of the
family. The relation throughout is one of mutual
service and regard. The binding power is not
authority, but love. There are doubtless provinces

p

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 37 1

in the family life where the experience, wisdom,
and actual authority of the father ought to prevail.
There are other provinces in which the wife fairly

commands.

«

There is a bad and mistaken democracy as well
as a good democracy. The bad democracy splits
society into units. It is essentially selfish. It is
the democracy which lets people enter into rela-
tions with others for the sake of what they can get
and enjoy. It is the democracy of those who
evade responsibility and shirk their honest duties.
Of course selfishness is the same divisive and sui-
cidal quality in democratic society that it has al-
ways proved to be in feudal and aristocratic
regimes. Selfishness and egotism were the roots
out of which, in earliest times, under cover of the
conventional marriage law, cruelty, brutality, and
oppression were the natural issue. Out of the
same roots to-day proceed looseness and frivolity
in the family Hfe and the frequency of appeal to
the divorce courts. We can never cure or repress
the symptoms of a malady. We must reach the
mischief at its roots. There is only one method
that has ever succeeded in this. It is the ancient
rule, to " overcome evil with good." We shall
cure a bad and mistaken democracy by the over-

372 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

flowing life of a good democracy. We shall set
before our children, as diligently as ever the Japan-
ese Samurai class have done, the one grand obli-
gation to be loyal and true.

See now how the democratic principle, properly
understood, works in the family relation, both to
establish it in security and at the same time to pro-
tect the individual. We set love or good will as
the bond of the family. It presses equally on
every member. Its simple rule is : '' To each ac-
cording to his need ; from each according to his
ability." This is the rule of love; no force or
legislation could ever enact it. Wherever love
works it seeks the welfare of its objects. The one
intent of the honorable husband and father is the
happiness of the home. This is the intent of every
other member of the household. This intent in-
volves the closest cooperation and the utmost
happiness.

Some one asks if it may not be a danger that
the parents in the modern home will deny them-
selves too much for the sake of the happiness of
their children ? The household will therefore be
made up of one group who sacrifice themselves,
and another group who merely accept the sacri-
fice of the others and enjoy themselves. If this is

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 373

a peril, it is because parents themselves have not
yet learned what the welfare of their children is.
Happiness is in giving and expressing love. If
the parents contrive merely that the children shall
enjoy being waited upon by others, without enjoy-
ing the highest beatitude, namely, the rendering of
hearty, loyal, and helpful service, they so far fail
to secure the welfare of their children. It is un-
fortunate that many otherwise good parents do not
see this fact.

It ought to be clear by this time that the truly
democratic home is the most stable social organiza-
tion that ever was seen. Its own life secures its
permanence. It really requires no provision of
legislation to defend it. There is in it at one and
the same time freedom of spirit and effective and
harmonious cooperation. No one of its members
can be conceived as wishing to be faithless to it.
The principle extends to the conditions of domes-
tic service in the household. In multitudes of
homes to-day, the good will prevalent in the home
possesses also those who come from without to
serve in it. These kindly, faithful men and
women, who in many cases stand willing to lay
down their lives for the children of the people
who employ them, are not mere mercenaries.

374 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

Must the democratic family, some one asks, have
no protection by law against the demoralizing in-
fluences which still everywhere hold over from the
days of primitive barbarism ? The need is certainly
less than many people suppose, who exaggerate
the use of legislation. It must not be forgotten
that the monogamic family made its way as a
higher type in the first instance, simply because it
was stronger and fitter to survive ; it prevailed
without legislation to defend it and in the face of
looser usages.

Nevertheless, it is clearly reasonable that society
should have something to say by way of good
order and method to those who propose to enter
matrimony. It is necessary for every reason that
the relation should be brought out of the dark and
the clandestine into the light of frank publicity.
It is necessary that the public should know,
especially as long as private property exists, who
are responsible for children's lives.

This is not because the civil contract establishes
the marriage ; nothing but the sacrament of true
love can do that. But on the social side, the
public fairly asks of the married pair that they
shall register the fact of their union, and inform
their neighbors how to consider them henceforth.

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 375

The married people will later be likely to ask the
help of society in behalf of their children and in
the disposition of their property. The least that
they can do, on every ground of public con-
venience and private self-respect, is to obey such
rational marriage laws as society everywhere
establishes.

What now shall we say of the question of
divorce ? It is a grave evil, when married people
wish to break the tie that binds the home, and
especially if they wish this with selfish, frivolous,
or vulgar intent. But the real evil is not so much
that they desire to be separated from one another,
as that they have married without love or respect.
It is another form of this evil, that large numbers
of people have never learned what it is to be faith-
ful. In other words, they have not education or
religion. Men often quote the familiar Scripture,
" Whom God hath joined together, let no man put
asunder," as if it meant. Whom man hath joined
together man can never put asunder. The ques-
tion to be asked is, whether marriage exists in the
absence of love. Is not a loveless marriage essen-
tially bestial ?

There are surely also just causes for separation,
even more serious than marital infidelity. What

376 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

shall we say to those cases of abnormality, which
sometimes happen, where brutal men have no
respect for womanhood? What shall we say of
cases of outrageous cruelty?

The fact is, society does not decree separation.
As in the case of marriage, it can only register the
separation which has already taken place. Here
is a delicate and highly important subject. For
evident reasons, as people ought not lightly to
enter into the marriage relation, much less ought
they lightly to be encouraged and aided to break
it up. The social pressure, on the contrary, ought
to be firmly and deliberately the other way, namely
to bear and forbear and be patient, and to learn
the eternal lesson of love. It is too true that, with
lax divorce laws, many people break the marriage
bond who might easily with a Uttle effort live very
comfortably together and develop lasting happi-
ness.

Only two general considerations need to be
urged as regards the amendment of the divorce
laws. One is that such courts should be very few
and somewhat august in their character. There
is no -reason why they should be composed of
lawyers or exclusively of men. Good women
ought to have a place upon them. They ought

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 377

not SO much to represent legal acumen as the
highest public spirit of the state. Moreover, in
many cases, not necessarily in all, according to the
judgment and advice of the court, a considerable
time ought to elapse between a first decree of
separation and the final public notice, if then
necessary, of absolute divorce. By this limit of
time the temptation to divorce on the side of mere
selfish passion would largely be obviated.

A good deal is said of the necessity for national
marriage and divorce legislation. Those who
make this demand probably exaggerate the amount
of mischief which arises from the lack of uniformity
in the statutes of different states. They expect also
to accomplish too much by making laws. Possibly
they are somewhat zealous to enforce their own
ideals of marriage upon other people. There are
considerable advantages in maintaining the present
freedom of each state to set the example to other
states in the making of wise laws on this most deli-
cate of subjects. Meanwhile unwise legislation,
always tested by the result, is easily corrected, if a
single state only, and not the nation, is made respon-
sible for it. The ideal system of marriage laws
would seem to grow naturally out of the progressive
action of many enlightened commonwealths, each

37S THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

copying the best work of its neighbors. Let us be
wary of any scheme of legislation foisted upon the
states by a majority of congressional votes. For-
tunately the Constitution of the United States is
still interpreted so as to put some limits upon an
arbitrary centralization of government.

Finally, the great need everywhere is for a
higher idealism. If all the girls in the country
could see how beautiful the true home may be, if
girls cared enough for the kind of love which
alone constitutes the real bond of marriage, we
should hear little demand for new statutes. The
statutes at best only formulate the life that is
deeper than rules. Every real home, where love
is, already sets the standard for the making of
other homes like it, and each happy husband or
wife is a missionary of the democracy of the
family.

XXIX

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY

The education needed to fit youth for the life
of a thorough democracy must evidently be a dif-
ferent education in various important respects
from that which is suited to any other regime.
Under an aristocratic system, for example, as in
the Middle Ages, men are divided into classes.
A few must be trained to command and the rest
to obey. A few must have a high grade of edu-
cation ; the rest need comparatively little. In a
despotic and unprogressive state, like Turkey, it
is not wise to train men to ask questions and to
think. In a free and progressive democracy there
cannot possibly be too much thinking. In states
with a servile population it is enough to give the
workers bare manual training. This is argued by
many people in the Southern states in regard to
the education of the negroes and the poor whites.
But a bare manual training will never fit men to
be the citizens of a democracy. Neither, as we
have already seen, can we ever have a good

379

38o THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

democracy on the basis of a large servile and
disfranchised population. If for any sufficient rea-
son there is a disfranchised class in a nation, all
the more need exists to fit this anomalous class
as speedily as possible for complete citizenship.
The aim of the good democracy is always the
making of all-round manhood.

There are certain common elements of knowl-
edge, — the tools of civilization, — which we are
bound to put into the hands of every child. This
does not really constitute a very formidable amount
of " book learning." The modern man must know
how to read and write ; he must be able to use
figures and measures ; he must know something
about the world in which he lives and the peoples
who inhabit it; he ought to know a modicum of the
history, at least of his own nation and the course
of events through which his own costly institutions
and liberties have been established ; he should
have introduction to the masterpieces of his own
language ; he should have stored in his memory a
few of the great verses and sentences which help
to make men noble. He should thus have the
open door into the larger world of science, travel,
literature, and achievement. There would seem to
be no harshness in a rule that would make voting

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY 38 1

citizenship depend upon a certain minimum of
pass-work such as we have outlined, and which
any boy or girl of sane mind and will could easily
cover within the grammar school grade of the
public school.

There have been states in which one part of
the people had to be useful and to work, in order
that another smaller part might enjoy themselves.
The ideal of a democracy is that every one shall
be useful. Every one must contribute his share
to the common wealth. We mean this in no nar-
row way. One may do his part not only by mus-
cular effort or mechanical skill, but also by the
exercise of all those intellectual, artistic, and spirit-
ual gifts through which a household, a neighbor-
hood, or a nation is enriched in its vigor and
happiness.

This ideal involves the necessity that every one
shall be trained to do something well. No one
who fails to give an equivalent for what he draws
out and spends can live an honest life anywhere.
That a man's grandfather was useful can be no
excuse to let the man off from maintaining the
honorable record of his family name. The good
democracy must, therefore, do more and not less
than we do now, to put every child on the track

382 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

of some useful occupation or employment, — a
trade, art, music, domestic service, gardening,
floriculture, farming, — some one of the innumer-
able offices by which modern society lives.

Once the father taught his son what he knew
himself, or the mother the daughter. The con-
ditions of modern life seem to make it impossible
to rely any longer upon this form of teaching.
The schools must supplement the discipline of the
best homes. There is much discussion over the
question whether the state does not owe every
one an opportunity for employment. The good
democracy certainly cannot sit quiet and see its
own members starve. Even less can we be con-
tent to see children growing up idle and useless,
almost certain to starve for the want of knowing
how to do anything well.

Ought the state to go farther and carry its
youth into the higher grades of academic and
university education .'' Ought we to give every
child what is known as a liberal education ? This
is probably to make costly things too cheap. Up
to a certain point .education is a necessity for the
individual and for the safety of society. The ap-
peal to every pupil is to fit himself to play his part
in the life of the state. This appeal is to his sense

THE EDUCA'ilON FOR A DEMOCRACY 383

of duty and his social feeling. Beyond a certain
point, however, education becomes a privilege. It
costs human labor and comes in every case out of
the common store of wealth which all create. Too
many boys and girls enter upon the priceless op-
portunities of college education, and groan over
their work as if they were slaves, or again, they
turn their time, bought with others' labor, into all
manner of self-indulgence. It is mischievous to
character to make light of a privilege. Why
should the democracy give its higher education,
even so far as the high school, to those who are
not eager to earn their special advantage, as every
prize of life ought to be earned, by hard work,
fideUty, and worthy character ?

The democracy will not give every one who
wishes it a college education. It will do better.
It will seek to give the opportunity of this splen-
did privilege to every child who deserves it. No
line of race or creed or poverty shall stand in the
way of the promising pupil. If the parents of
the deserving youth are able to cooperate and bear,
or share, the extra expense, let them do so. If they
are helpless to do anything, the state can never
afford to let real ability go to waste. The democ-
racy needs leadership of every sort Its educators

384 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

will be on the watch to discover and to develop,
at whatever cost, this necessary and truly popu-
lar aristocracy of skill, learning, character, and
genius.

Two kinds of schools are working side by side
in America — the public and the private schools.
So far as private schools, Uke hospitals, take
special care of the weak and anaemic, they may
perform a needful function. They may provide
for peculiar children who require exceptional
treatment. Parochial schools may venture for a
limited period to offer denominational teaching.
So far also as private schools represent originality
of discipline and new experiments in education, or
unusual standards of pedagogic excellence, they
may wisely supplement the public system. Public
schools may at times be so inferior as to become
impossible in the eyes of intelligent parents. We
note, however, a dangerous and undemocratic ten-
dency in the private schools. They are too often
intended to be the schools of a class or a caste.
They tend to unfit boys and girls for the life of a
democracy. A single pupil costs more than the
whole household of a skilled workman. These
schools become luxurious and wasteful of human
service ; they are only possible for the children of

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY 385

the wealthy. They estrange their pupils from
sympathy with the very people out of whose ranks
the parents themselves have risen. j&j

In the long run it can never be good to divide
the children of the democracy into different
schools upon the line of culture or wealth, - or
much less, of diversities of creed. The children
of all need to be educated together. -True culture
will never rub off by human contajCt.3i3]iie//cfedib-
dren of the virtuous must indeed be poorly traiiied
if they lose their good character or their good
manners by mixing with the children of humbler
moral opportunities. The children of the poor
have as much to teach the children of the rich as
to learn from them ! It is surely a bad symptom
in a democracy if any considerable number of its
children must be educated in private schools. In
the ideal democracy the public schools will gener-
ally be the best for every one. Already no appro-
priation for public purposes is so cheerfully voted
as that which goes for education.

The schools in a democracy are obviously not
for the mere learning of things, or to fit children
to earn a living. They are mainly for the disci-
pline in character, and character of a special
stamp. The virtue of the people under a des-

386 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

potism is to obey. This is also the virtue of a
democracy. But while in a primitive government
the many had to obey the few or the one out of
fear and by force, in a democracy the many obey
by choice and good will. Whereas once the
many were taught to obey the authority of a
man, the many are now taught to obey law, that
is, the authority of all men, and for the sake of
the welfare of all.

This involves a new teaching in obedience. In
the hands of the old-fashioned teacher was the
rod. The teacher and the pupils were often
at war with each other. Undemocratic antago-
nism and suspicion began and had object-lessons
in the school-room. The best modern teacher and
the pupils are friends. The good teacher is
armed only with persuasion and good will. The
teacher takes the pupils into his confidence. The
rules of the schools are common rules, not
the teacher's law, but the pupils' will also.

The spirit of the good school is essentially the
spirit of democracy. Its methods are easy object-
lessons in the way of voluntary or free govern-
ment. Natural issues arise every day in school
over questions of truthfulness or falsehood, accu-
racy or slovenliness, justice, honesty, and fair play,

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY 387

or cheating and shiftiness, generosity or meanness,
magnanimity or pettiness. The discipHne of the
good school consists in discussing and settling
these simple but profound issues in an atmosphere
of confidence, respect, and mutual kindliness.
The good teacher does not so much impart ethi-
cal instruction as set forth and make plain the
royal distinctions between good and evil. The
good is seen to be beautiful ; it is social conduct.
The evil is ugly because it is always unsocial.
The best teacher is the best democrat. He is
himself that which he wishes his pupils to be, —
fair, considerate to all, and impartial, helpful,
public-spirited, a lover of humanity. The best
discipline goes by the contagion of sympathy and
enthusiasm. Give us plenty of good teachers who
believe in democracy, and we shall have good
schools. Give us the right kind of schools, and
we shall establish the good democracy.

The democracy is founded in the idea of co-
operation. This is also in the nature of the good
schools. Its organization is cooperative from top
to bottom. Here, for example, is a great city
grammar school. There is a master in command,
but he is not therefore a dictator ; he superintends
in order to help. He is not doing personal or

388 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

selfish work, or exercising egotism and self-will.
His work is like that of the leader of an orchestra,
who directs in order that all may play in harmony.
There are boys in the school who will by and by
be foremen and superintendents in machine shops,
or mayors of cities. They see what kind of man
their schoolmaster is. They know whether or not
he loses his temper ; they see it if he is always
respectful to his teachers ; they catch the humane
and democratic tone of an excellent master, as
they are equally quick to detect the pompous and
egotistic autocrat. The spirit of cooperation which
possesses a good master is certain to be felt as the
law of the school in every room. For we are all
so made as to love to cooperate better even than
to quarrel.

A special need of the democracy is always for
brave men and women. There are those who are
shy of the name of goodness for fear that it may
mean lack of courage ; as if courage were not in
the essence of genuine goodness ! For goodness
is social virtue, that is, loyalty, chivalry, and nec-
essarily courage. How then shall we train our
boys and girls to be brave ? By the best pages of
history, by English and American history first of
all, by noble verses, and bits of the biography

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY 389

of our heroes, — the men of peace, pioneers,
inventors, discoverers, not less than the men of
war, — better yet, by that atmosphere in a school-
room which calls out independence, thoughtful-
ness, the courage of one's opinion, the will to vote
in a minority.

The schools may be degraded to promote a
vulgar mediocrity. The teacher, timid herself,
may repress individuality and snub the original
boy ; she may fear criticism for herself ; she may
not dare to admit and confess her mistakes or
even to ask apology for doing wrong. This is
the teaching of cowardice. The good teacher will
want, as Emerson says, to thank the pupil who
can show her how to do better ; she will be almost
glad, when the occasion arises, to be obliged to do
herself what she asks her children every day to
do, namely, to correct an error or apologize for an
injustice. She will call for frankness and accept
free speech. Frank and honest speech, learned
in the kindly atmosphere of the public school,
will at last triumph in the nation. We cannot
repress it in the school and save it for use in the
town-meeting.

The nation need never suffer for the lack of
physical courage. Well men with sound bodies

390 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

always tend to be brave in the face of material
perils. In a thousand shops and factories, in a
thousand ships, on endless railway systems, men
are daily practised in skill, patience, hardihood,
fearlessness. No active people will ever need to
enter the prize ring of war to preserve the iron in
its blood. But the peril of a democracy is in the
want of moral courage, the courage to stand alone,
to say one's honest thought and bear up against
popular or party pressure for a truth, a principle, a
common good which the many do not see, or own.
There has never been enough of this form of cour-
age in the world. The good schools must indeed
develop deference, courtesy, and politeness, but we
shall test their success by the men of moral and civic
courage whom they graduate — men like Burke,
like John Quincy Adams, Hke Charles Sumner.

An interesting and serious issue appears in the
field of education, concerning the organization of
the great bodies of teachers in cities and the facul-
ties of universities. A commercial or military
conception prevails, tending toward excessive cen-
tralization of power in the hands of superintend-
ents, trustees, committees, and presidents. A
sharp differentiation is made between the few who
command and the many who take orders. It is

THE EDUCATION FOR A DEMOCRACY 39I

ominous when the teachers of Chicago feel obliged
to form a " labor union " in order to enforce their
rights against their own city. It is ominous when
the president of a college assumes a dictatorial au-
thority over his own colleagues in the faculty.
The success of the teaching force especially de-
pends upon freedom of individual initiative, upon
the generous sympathy and appreciation of its
leaders toward their fellows, upon a continual
demand for the use of skill and intelligence, ren-
dered possible only in the genial atmosphere of
democratic liberty.

A difficult question touching the schools of a
democracy remains. It concerns the teaching of
religion. There are those who say that public
schools are and must be irreligious. They surely
cannot teach any peculiar kind of religion. Must
they therefore be without religion ? And must
those who hold religion, in its best sense, to be the
most profound fact in human life and truly essen-
tial to every good school, either be obliged to
establish schools of their own, each to teach some
single form of religion, — Jewish, Catholic, or sec-
tarian Protestant, — or else altogether give up the
magnificent ideal of a public school system, main-
tained by the people and for the people ?

392 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

The truth is, there is a kind of religion that lies
deeper than any form. Take the case of a man
like the late William H. Baldwin, Jr., of New York,
who believes in justice and who would give his
life for it, who would starve rather than forswear
a truth, who loves men and loves children, who
holds all that he possesses in trust to do good ser-
vice for the common humanity. Such a man may
be a teacher in a public school. Is such a man
not religious ? And does he not teach rehgion in
every action and word ? In him and through him
shines the life of God, which is goodness. The
justice and truth of God are in him. He persuades
us to love the good life and to go in the company of
the pure-hearted and the humane. This man may
go to any church or synagogue which he chooses.
Who cares very much whether his creed is long or
short, whether it agrees with our creed or not.?
Wherever such a teacher is, the life of religion is
also. His school is, no ** godless school." The
deep religion of humanity, the religion which un-
derlies the good democracy, is in his school. Put
teachers of this religion in every school and the
world would presently see a revival of religion such
as never was known in history.

XXX

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM

Different groups of men offer two apparently
opposite social ideals, — socialism and anarchy.
These ideals are opposite, as seen from the level of
men's selfishness ; they involve a strife. But de-
velop them both, set them to work, mix plenty of
humanity with them, and they presently grow at
the top strangely alike. They represent different
elements or strands in the common human nature.
The two elements are generally mixed in more or
less measure in each individual. They are both
needful in the personal and in the social life. The
resultant of the two forces (call them by what
names you please) is social health or welfare.

The one tendency in human nature is toward
the forming of habits, toward fixed order, toward
organization, discipline, and regular institutions.
It is this element in life which always tends to
establish and maintain the type and the species ;
it works toward uniformity and perpetuity ; it re-
produces the parent in the child ; it binds each

393

394 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

new generation into a likeness with the old; it
keeps ancient customs, holds familiar usages as
sacred, and dreads change, reform, or novelty.
This is the conservative element in nature which
goes to the maintenance of the fabric. The con-
servative habitually desires to keep things as they
are, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
The conservative wishes for social rest and quiet.
He aims to establish his system ; he wishes to see
his city or state finished ; he is weary of incessant
repairing, readjustment, rebuilding, and reform.

It is commonly thought that the aristocratic
habit of mind is essentially conservative. . The fact
is, that probably for good reasons the majority of
mankind is conservative. All popular govern-
ments tend to be very shy of change. The people
generally prefer even the institutions which some-
what oppress them, to the cost, the thought, the
effort required for instituting a new and better
system. Habit is vastly more operative upon men
than are ideals.

It may at first thought seem paradoxical to say
that socialism specially appeals to the conservative
side of human nature. Not that socialism appeals
to all conservatives, or even to the majority of this
great popular class. But the appeal of socialism

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 395

is to men of a methodical mind, who are discon-
tented and disappointed with the strenuous modern
life. The promise of socialism is to establish a
new order, to fix everything by rule, to administer
industry and government on a vast scale, to give
every one his place, to determine a regular scale of
wages or salaries, to constitute what Mr. Bellamy
has called an ** industrial army."

The order, the uniformity, the discipline of an
army make appeal to the indolent part of a man.
No one will have to think too much, or to bear
stress of responsibility, or to work extra hours. No
one will be suffered to meddle with any one else.
Establish the system, men imagine, and life will
become smooth and easy. In a socialistic regime
mankind will have attained its happiness. For the
conservative always supposes that social happiness
consists in attainment, in rest, in plenty, in secur-
ity. Let us admit that the conservative element,
which aims to secure order and to fix its ideals in
institutions and to bind men over to keep the
peace, has its just place in human life. No man
ought to be without sympathy with the conservative
mind.

The biologists tell us that, besides the element
in life which acts to keep the type good, there is

396 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

also a force forever at work to produce variations
from the type. This is illustrated in the growth of
a tree. One part of the nutriment goes into keep-
ing the solid old wood, but another part goes, into
the very tips of the branches to make the new
growth. Thus in every growing species and indi-
vidual there is the same natural division between
the forces that preserve the form and keep the old
life in being, and the forces that go to make the
forms of fresh life. Much of this new life, as in
the blossoms of springtime and the spawn in the
sea, never comes to anything. Many variations of
the species prove to be only ** sports " and perish.
But progress, development, genius, and life itself
are involved in the forces which burst forth from
the old lines and forms. When these forces cease,
life ebbs away. The course of the life of mankind
in society is here in accord with the deep and uni-
versal laws of growth.

What is known as "philosophical anarchism " is
only an extreme form of that tendency in human
society which aims to vary and to grow. The an-
archist, or better, the individualist, seeks perfect
freedom, and has utter faith in freedom. Take off
the bondage of constraint and compulsion, give all
men a free chance to live, appeal to their energy.

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 397

their intelligence, their natural social morality, and
all will enjoy the maximum of happiness. The an-
archist or individualist sees that happiness is at
least largely in activity, and only incidentally in
rest and ease. Happiness to him consists in put-
ting forth effort, solving problems, overcoming
obstacles, taking ventures and risks. There is no
satisfaction in mere attainment; there is joy in
going on, in movement. His social ideal is not
static, but dynamic.

The individualist's habit of mind is constitu-
tionally wary of over-much organization, of too
much regularity, of centralized institutions in re-
ligion or government, of fixed moral codes and
their legal enforcement by the will of majorities.
His ethics, even while he may be sensitive to a
fault, high-minded, and possessed with the spirit
of sympathy, are the ethics of evolution; they
are an effort toward an ideal, not an infallible
standard.

Must we not agree that the individualist or
anarchist element is as important in human society
as is the conservative instinct.'* Must we not
deprecate any proposed organization of the indus-
trial or the political system which would harass
or oppress the very precious minority of mankind

398 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

whose lives seem to be consecrated by nature to
march and act in the vanguard, to try experiments,
to set forth new ideals, to stir the mass of men to
move on and never long to rest at their ease ?
The most conservative of us need to see life on
occasion from the anarchist's or individualist's
point of view ; we need to understand his mode of
thought ; we are never whole men till we embrace
in ourselves something of both the conservative
and the anarchic temper. The most stolid of con-
servatives could not afford to vote the indepen-
dents out of existence.

There is an element of the wild nature in most
of us. It revolts at oppression ; it is stirred into
flame by the touch of arrogance and enmity; it
rebels against compulsion by another's will. You
see it not alone in a half-crazy Guiteau and a Czol-
gosz. You see it in highly respectable directors of
railways and coal mines, when the laws interfere
with their corporate methods and gains. You see
the same in the most orthodox of ministers, when
the custom-house officers of their own party choice
compel them to pay duties on their baggage.
Anarchism grows straight out of the old roots of
egotism and wilfulness. On its worst side, it is
one with the animalism in men that burns negroes

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 399

at the stake. Let no man be too sure that he has
no anarchic stuff in his blood.

Men sway from one side to the other, as the
march of mankind goes on. The swing of the
movement seems now to be to the side of con-
stituted governmental authority, to the exaltation
of the idea of nationality and sovereignty, to a
recrudescence of the belief in force, to the desire
for uniformity. The hitherto liberty-loving Anglo-
Saxon peoples have caught the idea that the
world needs to be ordered from London and
Washington.

We have suggested that the anarchist may be
right in questioning the importance which most men
at present attach to the authority of the central
national government. Most Americans would be
disposed to question the usefulness of the central
government of Turkey, or China, or Russia.
Can we not also imagine a union of states in
which, through the growing civilization of man-
kind, there should be no necessity of any force or
compulsion, beyond the agreement of the peoples
composing them, and a general public opinion
sufficient to enforce every act of the common
agreement.? We in the United States are in
effect very close to such an arrangement as we

400 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

have just imagined. When does the supreme
court need to send troops to compel assent to
its decisions ? When does Congress need to levy
an army to invade a state ? The anomaly of the
civil war rather emphasizes than contradicts this
position. Nothing but the contentment of the
people of the Southern states make it possible to
hold them under the bond of the Union.

Two perils doubtless menace our country. The
first is the peril of a selfish or uncivilized socialism.
There is a sociaHsm that seems to represent the
combined effort of a class or a caste, a multitude
or a majority of men, all of them selfish, in order
to get power and means, to make a living for
themselves and their class. Men imagine that the
state, or some industrial system, may be made to
do the miracle of turning out a larger product of
welfare and happiness than the individuals who
make up the state are willing to expend in effort,
labor, wisdom, social service, and public spirit.
Men are apt to forget that they themselves con-
stitute the government, which cannot therefore be
better than they are. If they expect the govern-
ment to do more for them than they are ready to
do for themselves or for one another, they will be
as bitterly disappointed as if all the members of

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 40 1

the body waited for the body to move and feed
them.

The second peril is not from the kind of anar-
chism which certain newspapers and politicians
like to set forth in lurid colors. Few people care
to brave public opinion and to be treated as
" cranks " or fanatics in the name of an extreme
social theory. But the dangerous anarchism is
that which uses the forms of law and order to
express greed or self-will. The dangerous an-
archist is the man who employs expensive counsel
to manipulate the laws and promote his own
interests, to evade his proper public burdens and
taxes, and make all the money he can by whatever
methods a forceful nature can command. The
story of railway rebates reveals the conduct of
anarchists as perilous to the nation as those who
plot to assassinate despots. We have discovered
that the anarchistic spirit may show itself in high
office to set aside constitution and laws and to
carry out one man's eager purpose, whether of
ambition or of imagined benevolence. Selfishness,
as well as human egotism, forever runs off into
this kind of anarchism. But we shall never get
rid of it by examining immigrants and deporting
men to Europe. Actual anarchists are being

402 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

educated in every home and school, wherever
parents or teachers set object-lessons in wilfulness,
or wish to get more than belongs to them.

We may see now the golden mean of political
welfare. It is not in a combat between two great
human instincts. It is not in the attempt to divide
men between the two varying tendencies, and to
keep two permanent parties always in the field. A
series of alternate revolutions between the conser-
vative and the individualist parties is not a hopeful
prospect for mankind. Our hope is rather in the
closer social combination of both these wholesome
tendencies. We do not wish forcibly to check
either of them. We propose to encourage the
action of both. The extreme wing of each move-
ment needs nothing so much as to understand the
best thought of the men who represent the other
side from themselves.

Why distrust and fear the progress of socialism ?
Let us confess that we are all socialists to a greater
or less extent. That is, we all believe in doing
many things together which we could never do
separately. We are all socialists in desiring
stability and order.

The ideal democracy is a vast and complex
organization, comprehending all human interests

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 403

and unifying them ever more closely as the ex-
pression of a common purpose. The modern city
will learn to do more things for its people, not less.
The state, in the interests of freedom, must go on
and establish necessary provisions to safeguard the
common humanity. We cannot bear to have
men worked like machines, housed like cattle,
or living like brutes ; we cannot endure condi-
tions that perpetuate vice, idiocy, and pauperism.
We will not put up with common nuisances, with
darkened streets, with needless smoke and soot,
with disfiguring advertisements. Civilization means
the construction of innumerable roads, and men
must keep to the roads. Civilization means num-
berless rules, and men must observe the rules
whereby all enjoy increased freedom of action.
We have already limited the right of the individ-
ual to amass and hand down political power.
Will it not be good socialism, in other words, the
larger freedom for the many, when we shall dis-
tinctly limit the excessive aggrandizement of the
individual in the right of getting and keeping
property ?

This closer organization, however, may and
should come by the methods which the good in-
dividuaHst or anarchist would himself commend.

404 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

All rules are for the public convenience. The
good individualist needs no compulsion to obey
the common rules. They come into being by the
practical agreement of the people who have to
keep them. Even the needful conditions of a
progressive socialism will mostly come about by
the simple abrogation of obnoxious, partial, and
unsocial laws. Thus the laws and precedents gov-
erning property and land have mostly been made
and interpreted by a class for a class, and not
by the people for the people. The common law
of contract, which has been deemed almost sacred,
has been continually turned to the advantage of
the few against the many. Good socialism will
deny the right of the men of any generation to
bind the men of a thousand years after them to
pay interest upon monopolies ! Good socialism,
like good anarchism, will urge, " Take off need-
less restraints from men's shoulders."

The issue between the sociaHst and the individu-
alist temper is specially illustrated in ** the labor
question." No fair and humane man can take only
one side here. Reason and sympathy are on both
sides. The need is to combine the two tendencies
in common counsel and action. We sympathize
profoundly with the aim of multitudes of men

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 405

who are acting together for common interests.
The law of the industrial world is combination,
cooperation. It is this very law which the individ-
ualistic masters of trade and industry have been
working out in the form of gigantic corporations
and trusts. This is the tendency of the time —
perhaps excessive, too often surely, wilful and
anarchical in method. No wonder if the working
people, in proportion to the degree of their intelli-
gence, are following the lead of their teachers.

Our reason and our sympathy go with every
effort for closer union between men and classes
of men. We deprecate every struggle of the in-
dividual selfishness to stand out against the move-
ment of the forces which work to combine men in
a common effort. We deprecate the monopolistic
spirit, wherever we see it, which aims to get and
keep everything possible for itself or for its group.
We deprecate the antagonism which keeps groups
of men apart. But our reason and our sympathy
cease to cross the line where majorities, possibly
even mere strong-willed factions, whether em-
ployers or the employed, begin to tyrannize over
their fellows, to make industrial war upon them, to
use the ugly names and methods of battle to club
them into line. As long as there are men in any

406 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

kind of combination who are members by com-
pulsion or fear, who chafe at the restraints put
upon them, and are no longer free men, here is
unstable industrial equilibrium. Nothing social
can last that is not voluntary in its spirit and
based at last on good will. No combination can
last, or be long effective, which wars on the men
outside of it.

The world is large enough to admit all kinds of
social experiments. If there are kinds of work
which all must do together, for example, in turn-
ing out certain great wholesale products "like iron,
yet the most precious kinds of work, the artistic,
the highly skilled, the scientific, the directive and
thoughtful, are those where the bond of coopera-
tion, though always generally operative, must not
be suffered to weigh upon the free and originating
mind. If it be demonstrated that great aggrega
tions of capitalistic plant may be most safely and
effectively turned over to public control, with
possible uniformity of hours and wages, it is
unlikely that society will not equally need to
reserve considerable free areas of its industrial
territory in which genius, skill, and originality
shall have constant training, and in which willing
workers will not count their hours, or quarrel over

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 407

their pay, for the joy of their work. Till the end
of time, while life continues to be worth living,
there v/ill be the challenge to experimentation and
invention. It is perhaps the exceptional man who
answers to this kind of challenge. The average
man will not be interested enough to do anything
about it, — hardly to vote to give an opportunity
to the new venture. All the more need is there
that the individual shall be free to do his best, with
such willing help as he can command, without
waiting for the permission of a conservative and
sceptical majority of his fellows. We in America
may therefore look with great hesitancy upon the
tendency toward social tyranny exemplified by the
labor laws of New Zealand.

Man's normal life is social ; it is also a life of
freedom. This is the basis of all philosophical
anarchism. Anarchism at its best is an ideal of
liberty. I want to do what I do freely and not of
compulsion. I also wish nothing so much as the
welfare of other men who shall likewise do what
they are persuaded is just. There is no conflict
between this ideal and the other. My will is to
keep within the limits beyond which my action
would hurt or annoy others. It is my will also to
pay my full share of the taxes and burdens which

408 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

all must bear together. In a reasonable anarchistic
state we should each want to know what our share
of these common burdens is. My will is not to
monopolize special privileges of any sort. My will
is, if I live in a town, to burn my smoke and keep
no nuisances. It is easy to be a good anarchist or
a good socialist. The anarchistic spirit at its best
is in the noblest conception of religion. The good
God does not rule or compel our wills ; but good
will in us as in God is free will.

Observe how largely socialistic modern life has
already become. Observe how many the things
are for which we are all, perhaps unwisely, seeking
to secure legislation, that is, to get the aid of all to
carry out our cherished plans of reform, to aid
our charity, even to help our business. It is only
other men's socialism that we fear, as it is the
anarchism of men whose language we cannot
speak that alarms us. ^

Meanwhile every movement of trust in one
another, every effort to cooperate better, where
before we had failed, helps to weld us into a
stronger and freer society. Mutual trust is both
strength and freedom. The very effort toward a
more complete democracy helps make men of
those who struggle for it. No one ever joined

ANARCHY AND SOCIALISM 409

hands with his fellows to help win liberty or justice
or happiness without becoming a freer and happier
man himself.

Finally, the need for freedom grows as men
become civilized. If it be conceded that com-
pulsory authority is ever good for men, coercion
surely ceases to be good for them with the first
breath of real personality. The more truly they
becoitie men the more thoroughly does freedom
become their necessity. The very men who will
not brook dictation will do anything you ask for
the sake of their humanity.

XXXI

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY

Let us put out of our mind the kinds of re-
ligion that divide men, and think of that deeper
religion which binds men together. In this view
religion is man's sense of something larger and
higher to which he belongs, and to which he owes
allegiance. Take the simplest illustration of this
kind of religion. Here is the dust in the streets,
blowing in the wind, every particle separate from
the others. Beyond the street, in the fields, the
same material is being drawn up and incorpo-
rated, by the subtle alchemy of plant life, into the
structure of leaves and blossoms and fruit. So
religion, the inner vital force, takes men out of
their individualism and separateness into the struc-
tural social unity.

There is thus a religion of the family or the
home. The mere boarder, who comes and goes
and only pays for a room in the house, is without
this family religion. But the parent or child be-
longs to the family group ; he owes his loyalty

410

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 411

to it. His religion consists in his truth, his devo-
tion, his service. There is no real home life or
happiness where this devotion is wanting. The
foundation of the state rests upon the social struc-
ture that children are learning to build in millions
of homes. How can they ever be patriots unless
they have learned to be faithful to one another
and to act together ? There are those who imagine
a form of socialism without the continuance of the
family. Can they not see that in all history the
most solid material out of which citizenship has
been developed has taken its quality in the atmos-
phere of the homes ?

There is a reUgion of the town or the village.
The tramp misses this religion. He passes through
the town, but he does not belong to it. He only
uses it for his own convenience. But he owns no
obligation ; he feels no responsibility. The true
townsman, on the other hand, like the citizen of
ancient Athens, is ready to give his money, or to
spend his life, for the welfare of the town. He
belongs to the structural unity of the town. To be
generous, disinterested, and loyal is the religion
that holds men together in towns.

The greatest evil in our cities is that a large
number of their inhabitants have no civic religion.

412 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

They have' no sense of belonging to the city,
as a soldier belongs to an army. Too often
they have no house of their own and no valid
interest in the communal life. They evade the
payment of their taxes; they vote or not as they
please. To do as each one pleases, without regard
for the welfare of the whole, is the essence of
irreligion. The need is of a revival of the sense
of common ownership and responsibility ; the need
is of a new will to act together for the good of all.
As the wise emperor said, "We are made for
cooperation." This is civic religion. Where there
is plenty of it, no limit can be set to the growth
and richness of the public life. It is the develop-
ment of this religion which makes men in Maine
and Florida sharers and fellow-sufferers with peo-
ple whom an earthquake has rendered homeless in
San Francisco. Here is the sense that we all
belong to a common structure and owe each other
good will and assistance. Who does not believe in
this kind of religion ?

A bad democracy naturally allies itself with,
and is the expression of, a materialistic view of
life and the world. In the eyes of the egotistic
and brutal, might is right; and there is no other
permanent right. It may be the might of one or

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 413

of many, of the victorious sword, or of majorities
and ballots. It may even be forwarded on occa-
sion by an enlightened self-interest ; or it may be
limited by the apprehension of consequences and
perhaps by a survival of superstitious terror. But
all selfishness, even when it is dominated by the
forms of religion, is essentially irreligious. In
other words, the man who thinks of himself as
the unit and centre of the world, as the egotist
characteristically does, is thereby out of gear with
the universe. To be out of normal relationship
and sympathy with the lives of one's fellows is to
be irreligious.

As the bad democracy allies itself with the most
shallow materialism, so the good democracy in-
stinctively allies itself with and expresses idealism
and religion. This may or may not be in the con-
sciousness of men ; it is nevertheless important.
Democracy advances as fast as religion and no
faster. We reach now the largest and most undog-
matic thought of religion. Religion is that view
of the world which regards it as the parable or
expression of an overruling moral order, which
finds a spiritual unity behind its shifting phe-
nomena, which interprets the movements of history
as the progressive discipline of mankind toward

414 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

righteous and noble character. In this larger
sense the child who has learned to enter into the
organic structure of the home, the public school,
the town or the city, the state, and the nation, as
a loyal member of each new social unity, who has
thus become possessed of the ruling spirit of duty,
truth, justice, fidelity, patriotism, now at last finds
himself the citizen of the universe. He belongs
to the universal order ; he shares its principles
and ideals, almost as if he had helped to create
them.

In this view, and in this view only, is there any
real solidarity or unity of the human race. Men
are brothers, not because of any superficial or
physiological resemblance, but by virtue of intel-
lectual, moral, spiritual, and indeed wholly ideal and
inward, but none the less actual, qualities, aspira-
tions, possibilities shared by all. Men are one, not
because they are animals, but because they are
men, and this, too, when they have only really
begun to show themselves men, and while com-
plete manhood is yet far beyond their attainment.
Thus white men are one with those brave black
boys who brought Livingstone's body from the
heart of Africa down to the sea, not because all
happen to stand erect, but because the black men

I

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 415

in common with the best white men are capable
of an infinite devotion and goodness. We must
frankly grant that this is a religious conception,
for he who says that black and red and white men
are only so many animals, each seeking to push the
others to the wall, will probably not perceive how
superficial color is, and how profound and uni-
versal humanity is.

Again, democracy is at one with religion in its
conception of what the full-grown and civilized
man ought to be. Churches have taught that
nineteen hundred years ago there was one such
complete man, brave, just, kind, reverent, unself-
ish, disinterested. How strange that aristocratic
and priestly pretensions should ever have been set
up in the name of this most democratic of men !
The doctrine of democracy is that the good or
humane life is simply the normal fruitage of hu-
manity. A whole harvest of noble lives is already
on record. Democracy seeks nothing less than
the development of just such upright, friendly,
normal lives. The poor man to-day, at his best,
wants nothing so much for his children as that
they shall become men and women of this char-
acter — precisely what men have Hked to call
" sons and daughters of God." There is no

41 6 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

mightier motive impelling him to improve his con-
ditions and achieve freedom and opportunity, than
the knowledge that only in decent and humane
conditions can his children expect to achieve their
just inheritance as complete men.

This involves a very extraordinary conception
of human progress. If we chose to be sceptical
or pessimistic, why should we expect progress at
all — especially moral and spiritual progress }
Why expect it to be continuous ? Why should
we not have a mere insignificant wave motion, up
and then down, the rise of one empire with the
fall of others — a new civilization to-day and its
death threatened to-morrow ? The idea of prog-
ress — amelioration, a law of uplift and growth, a
coming commonwealth of nations, a parliament
of the world — is essentially religious. At our
worst, in our animal and selfish moods, we do not
see it. We see it only at our best, we see it in the
hours of our fullest humanity, when we are most
truly ourselves as men. And it goes along with
all those subtle invisible things which constitute
our religion.

The very life-blood of democracy is in this
wonderful common ideal of human progress. If
the spirit of democracy is more vital and buoyant

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 41 7

in America than anywhere else, it is because this
faith in progress is general among our people. It
is a part of the religion of our people. Who of
us, if we did not share this quite unprovable and
yet almost intuitive faith in progress, would have
the heart to struggle very hard for empty forms of
democracy from which the life was absent .-* We
might indeed still calculate that democracy was
the least of evils, or we might with the usual
selfish instinct of the favored classes resist its
coming, but all our enthusiasm about it, our cour-
age, our chivalry, our sense of its justice, enter
into the warp and woof of our religion.

We speak too glibly of progress ; we think of
wealth, inventions, appliances of comfort and lux-
ury. We possibly dream of a period when the
world will have attained the object of its dreams
and everything desirable will have been obtained.
But progress is really the motion of life itself,
destined to cease only when life ceases. There
is something infinite and spiritual in the idea.
Always something better waits to be done. The
city is always needing repairs and improvements,
new buildings and more perfect conditions. The
man moves on from the acquisition of material
good to intellectual and spiritual advancement.

4l8 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

If he were ever satisfied, he would begin to die
at the top. This is the nature of man ; there
is an element of infinite idealism in him. This
is the basis of fact upon which all real religion
rests.

The law of the normal man is the law of
society. The time may come when the material
growth of the world will have ceased, as the
growth of the man's body ceases. The lessening
birth-rate in civilized communities may point to
a period when the increase of the population of
the world will undergo a natural and even whole-
some check. Mere millions of men will not
make happiness. No successful democracy will
ever grow out of the struggle of myriads of peo-
ple, seeking each to get as much as possible and
to give the least. But the signs of the times
herald a development of mankind in the charac-
teristic human qualities. We want men and
women who shall express power, skill, beauty,
intelligence, justice, good will, not caring whether
any one ever pays them enough for their service
or not. This is rehgion. Give us plenty of
people who have caught this idea, and we will
establish democracy everywhere. Give us its
missionaries, and we will convert the Dark Con-

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 419

tinent. Possess the humblest of people with
this idea, and they become fit to govern them-
selves.

The bearing of this ideal of democratic religion
upon ecclesiastical institutions and machinery
already appears. The harshness and bitterness
of sectarian divisions tend everywhere to vanish.
Men of different denominations meeting one an-
other in their numerous civic and good government
clubs, upon the committees of associated charities,
and all kinds of humane societies and fraternal
orders and granges, presently discover the bond
of a common purpose, the same sympathies,
the same idealism. It becomes impossible for
these men, who love and respect each other as
men, to suspect or hate each other's religion.
The heresy cannot be very dangerous, which
leaves a man sound in his honor and in his devo-
tion to the public good.

The religion of a people is another name for
their idealism, their civic spirit, their disinterested-
ness, their reverence for moral and spiritual
values. It is often charged against our nation
that it is irreligious. This is to say that the na-
tion is without ideals. We cannot for a moment
believe that this is true. Was there ever a time

420 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

when more men cherished splendid visions of
social welfare than are cherished to-day in
America ? We look through the record of history
in vain to find such a period.

Men have had a dream of the union of the state
and the church. They have felt that the state
represents the unity of the political activities of
a people, their cooperation in practical measures
for the common welfare. They have thought of
the church as representing the spiritual unity of
a people, the means of their cooperation for ideal
ends. Long and costly experience goes to show
that the unity of which men have dreamed can-
not be brought about by compulsion. It grows as
men grow worthy of it. It comes like the ripen-
ing of fruit. We have found out in America
that it depends upon an atmosphere of liberty.
Let men seek to help one another in a common
cause, and political unity takes the place of fac-
tion. Let men's minds be free to think, let all
kinds and conditions of men meet freely, let
them know one another and work together, and
this innate spiritual unity presently discloses
itself. Already we are able to distinguish the
lines of the ideal ** Free Church in a Free State."
The characteristic of a government is that it

THE RELIGION IN DEMOCRACY 42 1

provides certain social machinery; the charac-
teristic of a church is that it develops a certain
spirit. The church and the state will be one, only
when the men who administer the government
are possessed with the noble good will which
the church is set to foster.

XXXII

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY

What shall we say are the actual prospects of
our good democracy ? The ideal has come into
the world of a scheme of society, both industrial
and political, in which men shall constitute a sort
of family. They are already social beings. They
shall think, feel, and act as social beings. They
shall realize in a large way that the welfare of
each makes the welfare of all. They shall be in-
dividuals still, but their individuality shall be
dominated by a generous good will. The forms
of society and the state will then adapt themselves
to and express the ruling democratic spirit. The
education of the youth will be directed to the
supreme end of social welfare, not to mere bread-
winning or egotistic ambition. All this is fair and
beautiful. Is it more than a wonderful dream ?

It is strange to how great an extent men are
still under the bondage of the primitive thought
of a golden age in the past. They judge the pres-
ent by their fancy of what the past once was.

422

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 423

Men who believe in evolution are bad evolution-
ists as soon as they come to make an estimate of
their own times. They compare their own present
conditions, not with what actually was in past
times, but with what they imagine ought to have
been. They complain of the failure of popular
institutions, the decay of virtue and public spirit,
the practical heathenism of cities, and the deca-
dence of the country populations. Either they do
not read history, or else they fail to interpret their
history in the light of their own doctrine of evolu-
tion. The truth is, that we look upon a world in
the process of growing. The analogy of a vital
organism, if not pressed too far, helps us to see
what we mean. Everything is in a state of flux
and movement. Cells are building and other cells
passing on to dissolution. Even in the body of
the healthiest and most promising child there is a
certain decadence of worn-out tissue. The child
passes through critical periods. And yet he is all
the time on his way to a maturity of thought, of
skill, of intelligence, and specially of moral and
spiritual vision and conduct, with which the bright-
est days of childhood were not to be compared.

We have nowhere denied the facts of childish-
ness and barbarism which survive everywhere in

424 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

modern society. We have nowhere ventured to
call our own nation or any section of it civilized
or "Christian." We deprecate the assumption
that we yet know, except in imagination, and by
virtue of exceptional examples, what real civiHza-
tion is. We are in the midst of a work, Uke a
great feat of engineering, which challenges all the
genius, the chivalry, and the patience of mankind.
Too many men are still living in the predatory
period, — not only in Berlin, or St. Petersburg, or
Pekin, but in Chicago, in Washington, in Boston.
But even predatory men and their forces have to
combine in continually larger aggregations. They
learn to act together.. They all form " unions " as
if by a law of the world. No wonder men catch
the idea of a crude democracy of force, before
they come to see what real democracy is. The
strike, the boycott, the "closed shop," the "black-
list," the deportation of men from a state, as in
Colorado in 1904, every infringement upon liberty,
all undemocratic attempts to force men's wills, are
but phases, or processes, in the great and hopeful
economic and social movement of our age. These
things, like the yellow fever or the cholera, are not
here to last. Every strike indeed is a new de-
mand for the democratic idea and the democratic

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 425

man, who will not endure the waste and the ugly
spirit of industrial war.

See now what great things we have already
achieved in the direction of the good democracy.
We have put an end to human slavery. In every
modern nation equitable courts have more and
more taken the place of barbarous private quarrels
and disputes. We have seen the rapid disuse of
duelling. We have seen the Hague tribunal set
up, and international issues peaceably settled by
arbitration. The world is growingly interlinked
in bonds of trade and of friendly immigration and
travel. Big as modern armaments are, the idea
prevails that war is a preposterous anachronism.
What is more impressive is that even in war hate
and malice are falling to the rear. An Asiatic
people has set the world an example of humanity
in war. The hearts of the plain people are doubt-
less nearer together than they ever were.

Meanwhile in America we have actually per-
formed the miracle of binding together more than
forty states in one solid and happy Union, domi-
nated, on the whole, by the sense of the common
good. In the industrial domain, we are daily
coming into closer forms of cooperation. Men
are learning that their interests are mutual. Com-

426 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

petition itself becomes nine strands cooperation to
every strand of mere selfishness. The slow, salu-
tary pressure of the universe urges its inevitable
demand for mutual trust, for consideration, for
respect, for kindliness. In a thousand factories,
shops, and railroads, managers and men are com-
ing to the consciousness of this common urgency.
Who cannot trace, on the lines of such innumer-
able great and beautiful precedents, the coming of
a real democracy which shall certainly fuse all the
states of the world into a common unity ?

It should be observed that modern democracy is
an exceedingly complex form of life. While in
the old days the barbarous man belonged to but
one or two social organisms, the family or the
tribe, to which it was his religion to be loyal, the
civilized man's duty and pleasure is to belong at
one and the same time to a considerable number
of societies, like wheels within wheels, to each of
which he must contribute his share of effort and
fidelity. It is not strange that it takes time for
men to learn to adjust themselves to this multi-
form membership in the family, the church, the
lodge or labor-union, the cooperative bank or shop,
as well as the city and the nation.

The standing wonder of the common humanity

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 42/

probably is that men on the whole behave so well.
Millions of the poor live in the sight of wealth and
luxury, but only the few steal. Except at rare in-
tervals and under immense provocation, the quiet
forces of order are always stronger than the forces
that make for chaos. The daily papers rake to-
gether a thousand stories of crime, excess, and in-
humanity. This is because humanity is the rule
and inhumanity is the exception. They tell us of
a few hundreds of cruel lynchings in the South.
We are bound never to rest while such brutality
overrides the laws, but the great fact in the
South is that many millions of black and white
men live, trade, and work peaceably together.
There are said to be many counties of the Southern
states as free from brutal crime as are the
country districts of New England. In the great-
est labor troubles, likewise, where new immigrants
cannot as yet speak the English tongue, the grow-
ing instinct of democracy is toward the persuasive
rule of order. Where do our fellow-Americans,
though idle by thousands, lift up their hands to
burn and rob ? The crime is the work of the few.
^he many do not believe in it.

Meanwhile, ideals not only appear, but, being
adopted, at last are fixed forever as standards.

428 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

A good Colonel Waring cleans the streets of New
York City so well that the people will never again
let them be utterly filthy. An American board of
health in Havana teaches Cubans how to put an
end to the ancient pest of their port. A good
mayor may die or be turned out of office, but peo-
ple will never quite forget the man who actually
puts the Golden Rule so unselfishly into practice
in behalf of their city as to get the name of " Gol-
den Rule Jones." Every experiment of good de-
mocracy, every act of trust in the people, goes
over into the mass of the evidence which at last
rapidly accumulates and, like a coral island, ap-
pears above the surface, to the effect that justice,
fidelity, unselfishness, good will, are the victorious
forces in the world. You cannot destroy them ;
you need not fear for them ; they belong to the
enduring structure. They win every day. By
and by no man will dream of getting on without
them.

Moreover, the very immensity of the material
gains of the world creates fresh moral demands
and gives promise of new and higher methods of
progress. Wealth is nothing but a means. The
control of infinite natural forces is only a means.
The end is human welfare and happiness, — not

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 429

the happiness of the few, but of the many. The
few cannot really be happy alone. The rule of
development is first bigness and force, but next,
quality, flavor, and fragrance, beauty and good-
ness.

The rule is that the few climb in advance of the
rest, but the others must follow. The law of the
world seems to ordain the democratization of
material means, of power, of education, of art,
of truth, and, not least of all, of the ideals and
visions of goodness. For the welfare and happi-
ness of men, as individuals, are based on the
growth of their humanity. Thus the most com-
plete individual is found to be the man of the
largest social spirit. This is the ideal life of the
Christ! The "Christ" is the type of that which
every man should be.

We do not leave out of account the supreme
law of effort, — " Nothing without cost," — which
dominates the world and educates men toward
manhood. The first difficulty with political and so-
cial schemes is that men fondly think that they can
bring in a perfect state or society or industrial
order by some short cut, — by a law, by a method,
by the single tax, by proportional representation,
by some external device. It may be a good de-

430 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

vice, but it is like the stent which they give in
gymnastics. The best that it ever does for us is
that it involves an effort in political growth and
power to reach it.

The good institution is simply the form with
which the good democracy clothes itself. The
best clothing in the world is nothing if the de-
mocracy has not grown to fit it. The framework
of our democratic constitution, never yet fairly
put to use, is itself a challenge to the nation to
grow worthy and good enough to build upon it.
Perhaps it was too good for us. We do not de-
serve it. Thus many people want jnore socialism
at once, but the question is whether we are worthy
of owning and managing more public wealth.
The common ownership of lands, mines, and for-
ests, righteous as it seems, is too good for a selfish
people. We must grow in order to redeem it
to ourselves. A land full of Quays, Platts, and
Rockefellers, and the whole nation trying to be
like them, does not yet deserve so grand a scheme
of common justice.

As we look on at the social and political world
in the process of growing, we are at once spec-
tators and participants. It is given to us to see
ideals for the individual and for society, while at

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 43 1

the same time we are in the thick of the struggle
and effort. This duahty belongs to human nature.
To see, beyond the dust and the noise, the lines
of the coming structure is a new incitement to
work with intelligent courage.

Men are apt to forget what the struggle is for.
They imagine that we are engaged in the effort
to secure some fixed state of comfort and ease.
They dream of the completed city, the state where
nothing ever happens, the world where people can
finally sit down and enjoy themselves. Whereas,
life is in effort more than in rest ; it must always
cost struggle ; its joy is in pouring itself out.
Men may well cease to struggle with other men ;
the time may come when they will not need to
struggle barely to exist ; but men must still con-
tinue to struggle to get on, to better themselves,
to win nobler happiness for their own generation
and for those who come after them. This is to
live. This is the hope of the democracy. We
have no enthusiasm merely to produce plenty to
eat and to wear, — a merely comfortable world ;
our enthusiasm is to produce men worthy to live.
The democracy is not an easy wholesale scheme
to get rid of effort ; its test is in the making of all-
round and mature men. Growth means effort ;

432 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

effort means movement and friction. We are
content to bear the cost and the friction, provided
we help one another to attain a larger manhood.
Our success is not therefore in the abatement of
taxes, or the saving of trouble for ourselves. We
propose to expend money and take trouble for the
sake of a better humanity. We work, not for
things or machines, but for men.

The practical question confronts us at the
close : What shall we, who happen to believe in
such a doctrine of democracy as this, do in view
of present conditions ? We are idealists, they tell
us, yet we live in an unideal world. The worst
danger of the idealists is that they refuse their
own principles. The life of democracy is in sym-
pathy, persuasion, humanity. The reformers and
the prophets have too often taken over the tradi-
tions of the brute world. They have separated
themselves from others. They have admitted and
exaggerated differences and antagonisms. They
have actually loved to fight. They have even
thought of themselves as a class or a caste, and
grown arrogant and contemptuous of other men.
It is as if the village boy who chanced to have
been given an education, drew apart from his less
fortunate fellows, or looked down upon them — he

[i^^h

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 433

who^nly a little before, thought and acted like
the rest of them ! Ibsen's strenuous doctor in his
" Enemy of the People " is an admirable caricature
of this type of reformer and idealist.

The truth is that the cardinal use of education
and enlightenment is in fostering modesty, wis-
dom, tactfulness, patience, and invincible good
temper, as well as power or moral zeal. Do you
despair of the democracy, do you complain of
men's slowness, their materialism, their bigotry,
their prejudices.'' The saving truth is that we
are all of one common nature, bad, when it is bad,
in high or low alike, — noble and generous also,
whenever it awakens in the dullest savage or child.
Below us all creeps the animal. Above us all
march the mighty geniuses and poets; they are
our kinsmen. Their nature is our nature.

Let us vow, as we love our ideals, that we
will never endure to forsake the company of our
fellows, the rank and file of mankind. We will
never despise the common toil. We will not
antagonize men if we can help it. We will keep
together and act together, whenever we can.
We would not drive men, if we could, as we
would not be driven ourselves. We will persuade
them. We will never forget that the worst men

434 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY

a^l

are yet men. We will not turn any out ol^he
temple of our humanity. Our faith in democracy
is our faith in humanity ; that is, that justice and
friendliness are in all men. If we believe this,
we can afford to be endlessly patient.

Finally, the great need of our time is intel-
Ugent good will. This is more costly than ideal-
ism is. Plenty of people see ideals, as they
might see the engineer's plan. Many will also
hold their ideals. The need is of those who see
the ideals, while also they see the men with
whom they live and work. This is almost a
new rule of conduct. It is hardly in the Bible,
except by inference and in a few great passages;
for the old way was, to curse your opponents,
as the Psalms too often do. The Bible mostly
divided men into kinds or parties, Jews and
Gentiles, imperialists and anti-imperialists, saints
and sinners. But the new thought is at the heart
of all the Bibles, for it is at the common heart
of humanity. It forbids us to hate or curse any
one. When we seem farthest apart, we still
fully expect to meet higher up.

Let the poet of democracy close our dis-
course : —

#

THE PROSPECTS OF DEMOCRACY 435

Have the elder races halted ?
Do they droop and end their lesson,
Wearied over there beyond the sea ?
We take up the task eternal
And the burden and the lesson —
Pioneers, oh, Pioneers !

•

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