Towards the Great Peace Part 5

Louis was better than the Third Republic, as this is better than was the monarchy of Louis XV. The aristocracy of Was.h.i.+ngton was better than the democracy of this year of grace, as this in itself is better than the late junker aristocracy of Prussia. You cannot subst.i.tute a machine in place of character, you cannot supersede life by a theory.

This does not mean that the form of government is of no moment, it is of the utmost importance for I cannot too often insist that the organic life of society is the resultant of two forces; spiritual energy working through and upon the material forms towards their improvement or--when this energy is weak or distorted--their degeneration; the material forms acting as a stimulus towards the development of spiritual energy through a.s.sociation and environment that are favourable, or towards its weakening and distortion when these are deterrents because of their own degraded or degrading nature. If it is futile to look for salvation through the mechanism, it is equally futile to try to act directly and exclusively on the character of the social const.i.tuents in the patient hope that their defects may be remedied, and the preponderance of character of high value achieved, before catastrophe overtakes the experiment. Life is as sacramental as the Christian religion and Christian philosophy; neither the spiritual substance nor the material accidents can operate alone but only in a conjunction so intimate that it is to all intents and purposes--that is, for the interests and purposes of G.o.d in human life--a perfect unity. However completely and even pa.s.sionately we may realize the determining factor of spiritual energy as this manifests itself through personal character, however deeply we may distrust the machine, we are bound to recognize the paramount necessity of the active interplay of both within the limits of life as we know it on the earth, and therefore it is very much our concern that the machine, whether it is industrial, political, educational, ecclesiastical or social, is as perfect in its nature and stimulating in its operations as we are able to compa.s.s.

In the present liquidation of values, theories and inst.i.tutions we are bound therefore to scrutinize each operating agency of human society, to see wherein it has failed and how it can be bettered, and the problem before us now is the political organism.

Now it appears that in the past there have been just two methods whereby a civil polity has come into existence and established itself for a short period or a long. These two methods are, first, unpremeditated and sometimes unconscious growth; second, calculated and self-conscious revolution. The first method has produced communities, states and empires that frequently worked well and lasted for long periods; the second has had issue in nothing that has endured for any length of time or has left a record of beneficence. Evolution in government is in accord with the processes of life, even to the extent that it is always after a time followed by degeneration; revolution in government is the throwing of a monkey-wrench into the machinery by a disaffected workman, with the wrecking of the machine, the violent stoppage of the works, and frequently the sudden death of the worker as a consequence. The English monarchy from Duke William to Henry VIII, is a case of normal growth by minor changes and modifications, but its subsequent history has been one of revolutions, six or seven having occurred in the last four hundred years; the scheme which now holds, though precariously, is the result of the great democratic revolution accomplished during the reign of Queen Victoria. The free monarchies of Europe which began to take form during the long period of the Dark Ages and pursued their admirable course well through the Middle Ages, were also normal and slow growths; but the revolutions that have followed the Great War will meet a different fate, several of them, indeed, have counted their existence in months and have already pa.s.sed into history.

If we are wise we shall discount revolutions for the future, for nothing but ill is accomplished by denying life and exalting the ingenious subst.i.tutes of ambitious and presumptuous Frankensteins; the result is too often a monster that works cleverly at first, and with a semblance of human intelligence, but in the end shows itself as a destroyer. Our task is to envisage, as clearly as possible, the political systems established amongst us, note their weaknesses either in themselves or in their relations.h.i.+p to society as it is, and then try to find those remedies that can be applied without any violent methods of dislocation or subst.i.tution; always bearing in mind the fact that the energizing force that will make them live, preserve them from deterioration, and adapt them to conditions which will ever change, is the spiritual force of human personality, and that this force comes only through the character qualities of the individual components of society.

Now in considering our own case in this day and generation there are first of all two matters to be borne in mind. One is that we shall do well to confine our inquiry to the United States, for while the defects we shall have to point out are common to practically all the contemporary governments of Europe and the Americas, our own enginery is different in certain ways, and our troubles are also different between one example and another. After all, our immediate interest must lie with our own national problems. The other point is that in criticising the workings of government in America we are not necessarily criticising its founders or the creators of its original const.i.tutions, charters, and other mechanisms. The Const.i.tution of the United States, for example, was conceived to meet one series of perfectly definite conditions that have now been superseded by others which are radically, and even diametrically different. The original Const.i.tution was a most able instrument of organic law, but just because it did fit so perfectly conditions as they were four generations ago, it applies but indifferently to present circ.u.mstances, and even less well than the Founders hoped would be the case; for the reason that the amendments which were provided for have seldom taken cognizance of these changing conditions, and even when this was done the amendments themselves have not been wisely drawn, while certain of them have been actually disastrous in their nature, others frivolous, and yet more the result of ephemeral and hysterical ebullitions of an engineered public opinion.

The same may be said of state const.i.tutions and munic.i.p.al charters, which have suffered incessant changes, mostly unfortunate and ill-judged, except during the last few years, when a spirit of real wisdom and constructiveness has shown itself, though sporadically and as yet with some timidity. The reforms, such as they are, are largely in the line of palliatives; the deep-lying factors, those that control both success and failure, are seldom touched upon. The necessary courage--or perhaps temerity--is lacking. What is needed is such a clear seeing of conditions, and such an approach, as manifested themselves in the Const.i.tutional Convention of the United States, for in spite of the many compromises that were in the end necessary to placate a public opinion not untouched by prejudice, superst.i.tion and selfishness, the great doc.u.ment--and even more the records of the debates--still brilliantly set forth both the clear-seeing and the lofty att.i.tude that characterized the Convention. Had these men been gathered together today, even the same men, they would frame a very different doc.u.ment, for they took conditions and men as they were, and, with an indestructible hope to glorify their common sense, they produced a masterpiece. It is in the same spirit that we must approach our problem of today.

Now in considering the situation that confronts us, we find certain respects in which either the methods are bad, or the results, or both.

There is no unanimity in this criticism, indeed I doubt if any two of us would agree on all the items in the indictment, though we all might unite on one or two. I can only give my own list for what it is worth.

In the first place we, in common with all the nations, have drifted into imperialism of a gross scale and illiberal, even tyrannical working. We could hardly do otherwise for such has been the universal tendency for more than an hundred years. By constant progression munic.i.p.al governments have absorbed into themselves matters that in decency, and with any regard for liberty, belong to the individual. Simultaneously our state governments have followed the same course, infringing even on the just prerogatives of the towns and cities, while, more than all, the national government has robbed the states, the cities and the citizens of what should belong to them, until at last we have an imperial, autocratic, inquisitorial, and largely irresponsible government at Was.h.i.+ngton that is the one supreme political fact; we are no longer a Federal Republic but an Imperialism, in which is centralized all the authority inherent in the one hundred and ten millions of our population and from which a constantly diminis.h.i.+ng stream of what is practically devolved authority, trickles down through state and city to the individual in the last instance--if it gets there at all! This I believe to be absolutely and fatally wrong. In the first place, human society cannot function at this abnormal scale, it is outside the human scale, for in spite of our pride and insolence there are limits on every hand to what man can do. In the second place, I conceive it to be absolutely at variance with any principle of republicanism or democracy or even of free monarchy. It is at one only with the imperialism of Egypt, Babylon, Rome and the late Empire of Germany. In a free monarchy, a republic, or a democracy, the pyramid of political organism stands, not on its point but broad-based and four-square, tapering upward to its final apex. A sane and wholesome society begins with the family--natural or artificial--which has original jurisdiction over a far greater series of rights and privileges than it now commands. From the family certain powers are delegated to the next higher social unit, the village or communal group, which in its turn concedes certain of its inherent rights to the organic group of communities, or states, and finally the states commit to the last and general authority, the national government, some of the elements of authority that have been delegated to them. The principle of this delegation from one organism to another, is common interest and welfare; only those functions which can be performed with more even justice and with greater effectiveness, by the community for example, than by the family, are so delegated. In the same way the several groups commit to their common government only so much as they cannot perform with due justice and equity to the others in the same group. In the end the national government exists only that it may provide for a limited number of national necessities, as for example, defence against extra-national aggression, the conduct of diplomatic relations with foreign powers, the maintaining of a national currency and a national postal service, the provision of courts of last resort, and the raising of revenue for the support of these few and explicit functions.

The first step, it seems to me, towards governmental reform, is decentralization, with a return to the States, the civic communities and the individual citizens of nine-tenths of the powers and the prerogatives that have been taken from them in defiance of abstract justice, of the principles of free government and of the theory of the workable unit of human scale. In a word we must abandon imperialism and all its works and go back to the Federal Republic.

The second cause of our troubles lies, I believe, in the inst.i.tution of universal suffrage founded on the theory (or dogma) that the electoral franchise is an inalienable right. This doctrine is of recent invention, only coming into force during the "reconstruction period" following the War between the States, when it was brought forward by certain leaders of the Republican party to justify their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negroes in the hope that by this act they could fix their party in power to perpetuity. In any case, the plan itself has worked badly, both for the community and for many of the voters. It is of course impossible for me to argue the case in detail; I can do hardly more than state my own personal belief, and this is that the question is wholly one of expediency, and that the question of abstract justice and the rights of man does not enter into the consideration. I submit that the electoral franchise should again be accepted as a privilege involving a duty, and not as a right inherent in every adult person of twenty-one years or over and not lunatic or in jail. This privilege, which in itself should confer honour, should be granted to those who demonstrate their capacity to use it honestly and intelligently, and taken away for cause.

The acute critic will not be slow to remind me that this proposition is somewhat beside the case and that it possesses but an academic interest, since we are dealing with a _fait accompli._ This is of course perfectly true. The electoral franchise could be so restricted only by the suffrages of the present electorate, and it is inconceivable that any large number, and far less, a majority, of voters would even consider the proposition for a moment. For good or ill we have unrestricted adult suffrage, and there is not the faintest chance of any other basis being established by const.i.tutional means. Something however can be done, and this is a thing of great value and importance. What I suggest is concerted effort towards a measured purification of the electorate through the penalizing of law-breakers by temporary disfranchis.e.m.e.nt. It is hardly too much to a.s.sume that a man who deliberately breaks the law is constructively unfit to vote or to hold office, at all events, conviction for any crime or misdemeanour gives a reasonable ground for depriving the offender of these privileges, at least for a time. The law-breaking element, whether it is millionaire or proletarian, is one of the dangerous factors in society, which would lose nothing if from time to time these gentry were removed from active partic.i.p.ation in public affairs. If, for example, any one convicted of minor offenses punishable by fine or imprisonment were disfranchised for a year, if of major offenses, for varying and increasing periods, from five years upwards, and if a second offense during the period of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt worked an automatic doubling of the time prescribed for a first offense, I conceive that the electorate would be measurably purified and that regard for the law would be stimulated. In one instance I am persuaded that disfranchis.e.m.e.nt should be for life, and that is in the case of giving or accepting a bribe or otherwise committing a crime against the ballot; this, together with treason against the state, should be sufficient cause for eliminating the offender from all further partic.i.p.ation in public affairs. If the electorate could be purified after this fas.h.i.+on, and if more stringent laws could be pa.s.sed in the matter of naturalization of aliens, together with iron-clad requirements that every voter should be able to speak, read and write the English language, we should have achieved something towards the safeguarding of the suffrage.

The third weakness in our system, and in some respect the most dangerous, as it is in all respects the most pestiferous, is the insanity of law-making. All parliamentary governments suffer from this malady, but that of the United States most grievously, and this is true of the national government, the states and the munic.i.p.alities. It has become the conviction of legislative bodies that they must justify their existence by making laws, and the more laws they pa.s.s the better they have discharged their duties. The thing has become a scandal and an oppression, for the liberties of American citizens and the just prerogatives of the states and the cities, as vital human groups, have been more infringed upon, reduced, and degraded by free legislation than ever happened in similar communities by the action of absolute monarchs.

It is a folly that works its insidious injury in two ways; first by confusing life by innumerable laws ill-advised, ill-drawn, mutually contradictory, ephemeral in their nature, inquisitorial in their workings; second, by creating a condition where any personal or factious interest can be served by due process of law, until at last we have reached a point where liberty itself has largely ceased to exist and we find ourselves crushed under a tyranny of popular government no less oppressive than the tyranny of absolutism. Nor is this all; the mania for making laws has bred a complete and ingenious and singularly effective system of getting laws made by methods familiar to the members of all legislative bodies whether they are city councils, state legislatures or the national congress, and this means opportunities for corruption, and methods of corruption, that are fast degrading government in the United States to a point where there is none so poor as to do it reverence. The whole system is preposterous and absurd, breeding not only bad laws, but a widespread contempt of law, while the personal freedom for which democracy once fought, is fast becoming a memory.

The trouble began as a result of one of the elements in the American Const.i.tution which was the product not of the sound common sense and the lofty judgment of the framers, but of a weak yielding to one of the doctrinaire fads of the time that had no relations.h.i.+p to life but was the invention of political theorists, and that was the unnatural separation of the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government. The error has worked far and the superst.i.tion still holds.

What is needed is an initiative in legislation, centred in one responsible head or group, that, while functioning in all normal and necessary legislative directions, still allows individual initiative on the part of the legislators, as a supplementary, or corrective, or protective agency. No government functions well in fiscal matters without a budget: what we need in legislative matters is a legislative budget, and by this phrase, I mean that the primary agency for the proposing of laws should be the chief executive of a city, or state or the nation, with the advice and consent of his heads of departments who would form his cabinet or council.

Under this plan the Governor and Council, for example, would at the opening of each legislative session present a programme or agenda of such laws as they believed the conditions to demand, and in the shape of bills accurately drawn by the proper law officer of the government. No such "government" bill could be referred to committee but must be discussed in open session, and until the bills so offered had been pa.s.sed or refused, no private bill could be introduced. A procedure such as this would certainly reduce the flood of private bills to reasonable dimensions while it would insure a degree of responsibility now utterly lacking. There is now no way in which the author of a foolish or dangerous bill which has been enacted into law by a majority of the legislature, can be held to account and due responsibility imposed upon him, but the case would be very different if a mayor, a governor or the President of the United States made himself responsible for a law or a series of laws, by offering them for action in his own name. Certainly if this method were followed we should be preserved in great measure from the hasty, confused and frivolous legislation that at present makes up the major part of the output of our various legislative bodies. One of the greatest gains would be the reduction of the annual grist to a size where each act could be considered and debated at sufficient length to guarantee as reasonable a conclusion as would be possible to the members of the legislative body. The deplorable device of inst.i.tuting committees, to each of which certain bunches of bills are referred before they are permitted to come before the house, would be no longer necessary. This system, which became necessary in order to deal with the enormous ma.s.s of undigested matter which has overwhelmed every legislature as a result of the present chaotic and irresponsible procedure, is perhaps both the most undemocratic device ever put in practice by a democracy, and the most fruitful of venality, corruption and injustice. It is unnecessary to labour this point for everyone knows its grave evils, but there seems no way to get rid of it unless some curb is placed on the number of bills introduced in any session. The British Parliament is not necessarily a model of intelligent or capable procedure, but where in one session at Westminster no more than four hundred bills were introduced, at Was.h.i.+ngton, for the same period, the count ran well over twelve thousand! Manifestly some committee system is inevitable under conditions such as this, but under the committee system free government and honest legislation are difficult of attainment.

One would not of course prevent the proposal of a bill by any member of the legislature, indeed this free action would be absolutely necessary as a measure of protection against executive oppression, but this should be prohibited until after the government programme had been disposed of.

After that task was accomplished the legislature might sit indefinitely, or as long as the public would stand it, for the purpose of considering private bills, and these could be referred to committees as at present.

The chances are, however, that the government programme would cover the most essential matters and what would remain would be the edifying spectacle of Solons solemnly considering such questions as the minimum length of sheets on hotel beds, the limitation in inches and fractions, of the heels of women's shoes, the amount of flesh that could be legally exposed by a bathing suit, or the pensioning of a Swedish a.s.sistant Janitor,--all of which are the substance of actual bills introduced in various State legislatures during the session last closed.

Another grave weakness in our system is the election by popular vote of many judicial and administrative officers, coupled with the vigorous remnants of the old and degrading "spoils system" whereby many thousands of strictly non-political offices are almost automatically vacated after any partisan victory. I cannot trust myself to speak of the infamy of an elective judiciary; fortunately I live in a state where this worst abuse of democratic practice does not exist, and so it touches me only in so far as it offends the sense of decency and justice. In the other cases it is only a question of efficient and intelligent administration. There is an argument for electing the chief executive of a city, a state or the nation, by popular vote, and the same holds in the case of the lower house of the legislature where a bi-cameral system exists, but there is no argument for the popular election of the administrative officers of a state. There is even less,--if there can be less than nothing--for the changes in personnel that take place after every election. Civil service reform has done a world of good, but as yet it has not gone far enough in some directions, while its mechanism of examinations is defective in principle in that it leaves out the personal equation and establishes its tests only along a very few of the many lines that actually exist. I would offer it as a proposition that no election should in itself affect the status of any man except the man elected, and, in the case of a mayor or governor or the President, those who are directly responsible to him and to his administration for carrying out his policies; and further, that the voter, when he votes, should vote once and for one man in his city, once and for one man in his state, and once and for one man in the nation, and that man, in each case, should be his representative in the lower branch of the legislative body. Choosing administrative officials by majority vote, and the election of judges for short terms by the same method, are absurdities of a system fast falling into chaos.

The maintenance of a bi-cameral legislative organization, with the choosing of the members of both houses by the same electorate is in the same cla.s.s, a perfectly irrational anomaly which violates the first principles of logic and leads only to legislative incompetence, and worse. The referendum is of precisely the same nature, but this already has become a _reductio ad absurdum,_ and can hardly survive the discredit into which it has fallen. In any reorganization of government looking towards better results, these elements must disappear.

As a matter of fact, government has come to occupy altogether too large a place in our consciousness; naturally, for it has come to a point where it pursues us--and overtakes us--at every turn. Democracies always govern too much, that is one of their great weaknesses. Elections, law-making, and getting and holding office, have become an obsession and they shadow our days. So insistent and incessant are the demands, so artificial and unreal the issues, so barren of vital results all this pandemonium of partisans.h.i.+p and change, the more intelligent and scrupulous are losing interest in the whole affair, and while they increasingly withdraw to matters of a greater degree of reality those who subsist on the proceeds gain the power, and hold it. At the very moment when the women of the United States have been given the vote, there are many men (and women also) who begin to think that the vote is a very empty inst.i.tution and in itself practically void of power to effect anything of really vital moment. I am not now defending this position, I only a.s.sert that it exists, and I believe it is due to the degradation of government through the very modifications and transformations that have been effected, since the time of Andrew Jackson, in a perfectly honest attempt at improvement.

The best government is that which does the least, which leaves local matters in the hands of localities, and personal matters in the hands of persons, and which is modestly inconspicuous. Good government establishes, or recognizes, conditions which are stable, reliable, and that may be counted on for more than two years, or four years, at a time. It has continuity, it preserves tradition, and it follows custom and common law. Such a government is neither hectic in its vicissitudes nor inquisitorial in its enactments. It is cautious in its expenditures, efficient in its administration, proud in maintaining its standards of honour, justice and "n.o.blesse oblige." Good government is august and handsome; it surrounds itself with dignity and ceremony, even at times with splendour and pageantry, for these things are signs of self-respect and the outward showing of high ideals--or may be made so; that is what good manners and ceremony and beauty are for. Finally, good government is where the laws of Christian morals and courtesy and charity that are supposed to hold between Christian men hold equally, even more forcefully, in public relations both domestic and foreign. Where government of this nature exists, whether the form is monarchical, republican or democratic, there is liberty; where these conditions do not obtain the form matters not at all, for there is a servile state.

At the risk of being tedious I will try to sketch the rough outlines of what, in substance, I believe to be that form of civil polity which, based on what now exists, changes only along lines that would perhaps tend towards establis.h.i.+ng and maintaining those ideals of liberty, order and justice which have always been the common aim of those who have striven to reform a condition of things where they were attained indifferently or not at all.

The primary and effective social and political unit is the "vill" or commune; that is to say, a group of families and individuals living in one neighbourhood, and of a size that would permit all the members to know one another if they wished to do so, and also the coming together of all those holding the electoral franchise, for common discussion and action. The average American country town, uninvaded by industrialism, is the natural type, for here the "town meeting" of our forefathers is practicable, and this remains the everlasting frame and model of self-government. In the case of a city the primary unit would be of approximately the same size, and the entire munic.i.p.ality would be divided into wards each containing, say, about five hundred voters.

These primary units would possess a real unity and a very large measure of autonomy, but they would be federated for certain common purposes which would vary in number and importance in proportion to the closeness of their common interests, from the county, made up of a number of small villages, to the city which would comprise as many wards as might be numerically necessary, and whose central government would administer a great many more affairs than would the county. The city would be in effect a federation of the wards or boroughs.

The individual voter would exercise his electoral franchise and perform his political duties only within the primary unit (the towns.h.i.+p or ward) where he had legal residence. At an annual "town meeting" he would vote for the "selectmen" or the ward council who would have in charge the local interests of the primary unit, which would be comprehensive in the case of a towns.h.i.+p, necessarily more limited in the case of a ward.

These local boards would elect their own chairmen who would also form the legislative body of the county or the munic.i.p.ality. At the same town meeting the voter would cast his ballot for a representative in the lower legislative body of the state. In the smaller commonwealths each towns.h.i.+p or ward would elect its own representative, but in states of excessive population representation would have to be on the basis of counties and munic.i.p.alities, for no legislative body should contain more than a very few hundred members. Nominations in the town meeting should be _viva voce,_ elections by secret ballot. Legislation should be primarily on the initiative of the selectmen or ward council, and voting should be _viva voce._ With the exercise of his privilege of speaking and voting at the meetings of his primary unit, the direct political action of the citizen would cease.

The secondary unit would be the county or the city. Here the legislative body would consist of the presiding officers of the towns.h.i.+p or ward governments. The sheriff of a county or the mayor of a city would be chosen by these legislative bodies from their own number and should hold office for a term of several years, while the local governments, and therefore the legislative bodies of the county or the city, would be chosen annually. The chief executive of a county or city would appoint all heads of departments who would form his advisory council, and he would also frame and submit annually both a fiscal and a legislative budget.

The tertiary unit is the state, which is a federation of the counties and cities forming some one of the historic divisions of the United States. The legislature would as now be composed of two chambers, one made up of representatives of the primary units, holding office for a brief term, and a second representing the secondary units and chosen by their governing bodies for a long term. The logic of a bi-cameral system demands that the lower house should represent the changing will of the people, the upper, in so far as possible, its c.u.mulative wisdom and the continuity of tradition, while, as already stated, the whole principle is vitiated if both houses are chosen by the same electorate. The chief executive should be chosen by the legislative chambers in joint session, from a panel made up of their own members.h.i.+p and the heads of the county and city governments. He should hold office for a long term, preferably for an indeterminate period contingent on "good behaviour." In this case his cabinet, or council of the heads of departments, would of course be responsible to the legislature and would resign on a formal vote of censure or "lack of confidence." The Governor would have the same power of appointment, and the same authority to present fiscal and legislative budgets as, already specified in the case of a mayor of a city. No "commissions," unpaid or otherwise, should be permitted, all the administrative functions of government being performed by the various departments and their subordinate bureaux.

The national government is the final social and political unit, though it is conceivable that with a territory and population as great and diversified as that of the United States, and bearing in mind the great discrepancy in size between the states, something might be gained by the inst.i.tution of a system of provinces, some five or six in all, made up of states grouped in accordance with their general community of interests, as for example, all New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware; the states of the old Confederacy, those of the Pacific Coast, and so on. The point need not be pressed here, but there are considerations in its favour. In any case the nation as a whole is the final federal unit. Here the lower legislative house would consist of not more than four hundred members, allocated on a basis of population and elected by the representative bodies of the primary units (the towns.h.i.+ps and city wards) as already described. The members of the upper house would be elected by the legislative bodies of the several states on nomination by the Governor. The chief executive of the nation would be chosen by the two legislative bodies, in joint session, from amongst the then governors of the several states. He should certainly hold office for "good behaviour," and his cabinet would be responsible to the legislature as provided for in the case of the state governments.

I do not offer this programme with any pride of paternity; probably it would not work very well, but it could hardly prove less efficacious than our present system under conditions as they have come to be. This cannot continue indefinitely, for it is so hopelessly defective that it is bound to bring about its own ruin, with the probable subst.i.tution of some doctrinaire device engendered by the natural revolt against an intolerable abuse. If only we could see conditions clearly and estimate them at something approaching their real value, we should rapidly develop a constructive public opinion that, even though it represented a minority, might by the very force behind it compel the majority to acquiesce in a radical reformation. Unfortunately we do not do this, we are hypnotized by phrases and deluded by vain theories, as Mr.

Chesterton says:

"So drugged and deadened is the public mind by the conventional public utterances, so accustomed have we grown to public men talking this sort of pompous nonsense and no other, that we are sometimes quite shocked by the revelation of what men really think, or else of what they really say."

We do, now and then, confess that legislation is as a whole foolish, frivolous and opportunist; that administration is wasteful, incompetent and frequently venal; that the governmental personnel, legislative, administrative and executive, is of a low order in point of character, intelligence and culture--and tending lower each day. We admit this, for the evidence is so conspicuous that to deny it would be hypocrisy, but something holds us back from recognizing the nexus between effect and cause. Unrestricted immigration, universal suffrage, rotation in office, the subjection of many offices and measures to popular vote, the parliamentary system, government by political parties--all these customs and habits into which we have fallen have arrived at failure which presages disaster. They have failed because the character of the people that functioned through these various engines had failed, diluted by the low mentality and character-content of millions of immigrants and their offspring, degraded by the false values and vicious standards imposed by industrial civilization, foot-loose from all binding and control of a vital and potent religious impulse or religious organism.

It is the old, vicious circle; spiritual energy declines or is diverted into wrong channels; thereupon the physical forms, social, industrial, political, slip a degree or two lower out of sympathy with the failing energy, and these in their turn exert a degrading influence on the waning spiritual force, which declines still further only to be pulled lower still by the material agencies which continue their progressive declension. Theories, no matter how high-minded and altruistic, cannot stand before a condition such as this, for self-protection decrees otherwise even if the higher motive of doing right things and getting right things just because they _are_ right, does not come into effective operation. The evil results of the inst.i.tutions I have catalogued above are not to be denied, and the inst.i.tutions themselves must be reformed or altogether abandoned, in the face of the loud-mouthed exhortations of those who now make them their means of livelihood, and even at the expense of the honest upholders of theories and doctrines that do credit to their humanitarianism but have been weighed and found wanting.

I am anxious not to put this plan for the reform, in root and branch, of our political inst.i.tutions, on the low level of mere caution and self-defense. The motive power of this is fear, and fear is only second to hate in its present position as a controlling force in society. We should have good government not because it is economical and ensures what are known as "good business conditions," and promises a peaceful continuance of society, but because it is as worthy an object of creative endeavour as n.o.ble art or a great literature or a just and merciful economic system, or a life that is full of joy and beauty and wholesome labour. The political organism is in a sense the microcosm of life itself, and it should be society lifted up to a level of dignity, majesty and n.o.bility. The doctrine that in a democracy the government must exactly express the numerical preponderance in the social synthesis, and that, if this happens to be ignorant, mannerless and corrupt, then the government must be after the same fas.h.i.+on, is a low and a cowardly doctrine. Government should be better than the majority; better than the minority if this has advantage over the other. It should be of the best that man can compa.s.s, resting above him as in some sort an ideal; the visible expression of his better self, and the better self of the society of which he is a part. If a political system, any political system, produces any other result; if it has issue in a representation of the lowest and basest in society, or even of the general average, then it is a bad system and it must be redeemed or it will bring an end that is couched in terms of catastrophe.

Reform is difficult, perhaps even impossible of attainment under the existing system where universal, unlimited suffrage and the party system are firmly intrenched as opponents of vital reform, and where representation and legislation take their indelible colour from these unfortunate inst.i.tutions. It must freely be admitted that there is no chance of eliminating or recasting either one or the other by the recognized methods of platform support and ma.s.s action through the ballot. It comes in the end to a change of viewpoint and of heart on the part of the individual. No party, no political leader would for a moment endorse any one of the principles or methods I have suggested, for this would be a suicidal act. The newspaper, irresponsible, anonymous, directed by its advertizing interests or by those more sinister still, yet for all that the factor that controls the opinions of those who hold the balance of power in the community as it is now const.i.tuted, would reject them with derision, while in themselves they are radically opposed to the personal interests of the majority. The only hope of lifting government to the level of dignity and capacity it should hold, lies in the individual. It is necessary that we should see things clearly, estimate conditions as they are, and think through to the end.

We do not do this. We admit, in a dull sort of way, that matters are not as they should be, that legislation is generally silly and oppressive, that taxation is excessive, that administration is wasteful and reckless and incompetent, for we know these things by experience. We accept them, however, with our national good-nature and easy tolerance, a.s.suming that they are inseparable from democratic government--as indeed they are, but not for a moment does any large number think of questioning the principle, or even the system, that must take the responsibility. When disgust and indifference reach a certain point we stop voting, that is all. At the last presidential election less than one half the qualified voters took the trouble to cast their ballots, while in Boston (which is no exception) it generally happens that at a munic.i.p.al elections the ballots cast are less than one-third the total electorate. I wonder how many there are here today who have ever been to a ward meeting, or have sat through a legislative session of a city government, as of Boston for example, or have listened to the debates in a state house of representatives, or a.n.a.lyzed the annual grist of legislative bills, or have sat for an hour or two in the Senate or House at Was.h.i.+ngton. Such an experience is, I a.s.sure you, illuminating, for it shows exactly why popular government is what it is, while it forms an admirable basis for a constructive revision of judgment as to the soundness of accepted principles and the validity of accepted methods.

Our political att.i.tude today is based on an inherited and automatic acceptance of certain perfectly automatic formulae. We neither see things clearly, estimate conditions as they are, nor think a proposition through to the end: we are obsessed by old formulae, partisan "slogans"

and newspaper aphorisms; the which is both unworthy and perilous. Let us see things clearly for a moment; if we do this anything is possible, no matter how idealistic and apparently impracticable it may be. Is there any one who would confess that character and intelligence are now a helpless minority in this nation? Such an admission would be almost constructive treason. The instinct of the majority is right, but it is defective in will and it is subservient to base leaders.h.i.+p, while its power for good is negatived by the persistence of a ma.s.s of formulae that, under radically changed conditions, have ceased to be beneficient, or even true, and have become a clog and a stumbling block.

I may not have indicated better ideals or sounder methods of operation, but the true ideals exist and it is not beyond our ability to discover a better working system. Partisans.h.i.+p cannot reveal either one or the other, nor are they the fruit of organization or the attribute of political leaders.h.i.+p. They belong to the common citizen, to you, to the individual, and if once superst.i.tion is cast out and we fall back on right reason and the eternal principles of the Christian ethic and the Christian ideal, we shall not find them difficult of attainment; and once attained they can be put in practice, for the ill thing exists only on sufferance, the right thing establishes itself by force of its very quality of right.

VI

THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION AND ART

When, as on occasion happens, some hostile criticism is leveled against the civilization of modernism, or against some one of its many details, the reply is ready, and the faultfinder is told that the defect, if it exists, will in the end be obviated by the processes of popular education. Pressed for more explicit details as to just what may be the nature of this omnipotent and sovereign "education," the many champions give various answer, depending more or less on the point of view and the peculiar predilections of each, but the general principles are the same.

Education, they say, consist of two things; the formal practice and training of the schools, and the experience that comes through the use of certain public rights and privileges, such as the ballot, the holding of office, service on juries, and through various experiences of the practice of life, as the reading of newspapers (and perhaps books), the activities of work, business and the professions, and personal a.s.sociation with other men in social, craft, and professional clubs and other organizations.

With the second category of education through experience we need not deal at this time; it is a question by itself and of no mean quality; the matter I would consider is the more formal and narrow one of scholastic training in so far as it bears on the Great Peace that, though perhaps after many days, must follow the Great War and the little peace.

Answering along this line, the protagonists of salvation through education pretty well agree that the thing itself means the widest possible extension of our public school system, with free state universities and technical schools, and the extension of the educational period, with laws so rigid, and enforcement so pervasive and impartial, that no child between the ages of six and sixteen can possibly escape.

This free, compulsory and universal education is a.s.sumed to be scrupulously secular and hedged about with every safeguard against the insidious encroachments of religion; it will aim to give a little training in most of the sciences, and much in the practical necessities of business life, as for example, stenography, book-keeping, advertising and business science; it will cover a broad field of manual training leading to "graduate courses" in special technical schools; the "laboratory method" and "field practice" will be increasingly developed and applied; Latin, Greek, logic and ancient history will be minimized or done away with altogether, and modern languages, applied psychology and contemporary history will be correspondingly emphasized. As for the state university, it will allow the widest range of free electives, and as an university it will aim to comprise within itself every possible department of practical activity, such as business administration, journalism, banking and finance, foreign trade, political science, psycho-a.n.a.lysis, mining, sanitary engineering, veterinary surgery, as well as law, medicine, agriculture, and civil and mechanical engineering. I am curious to inquire at this time if education such as this does, as a matter of fact, educate, and how far it my be relied upon as a corrective for present defects in society; or rather, first of all, whether education of this, or of any sort, may be looked on as a sufficient saving force, and whether general education, instead of being extended should not be curtailed, or rather safeguarded and restricted.

I have already tried to indicate, in my lecture on the Social Organism, certain doubts that are now arising as to the prophylactic and regenerative powers of education, whether this is based on the old foundation of the Trivium and Quadrivium under the supreme dominion of Theology, or on the new foundation of utilitarianism and applied science under the dominion of scientific pedagogy. While the active-minded portion of society believed ardently in progressive evolution, in the sufficiency of the intellect, the inerrancy of the scientific method, and the transmission by inheritance of acquired characteristics, this supreme confidence in free, secular, compulsory education as the cure-all of the profuse and pervasive ills of society was not only natural but inevitable. I submit that experience has measurably modified the situation, and that we are bound therefore to reconsider our earlier persuasions in the light of somewhat revealing events.

We may admit that the system of modern education works measurably well so far as intellectual training is concerned; _training_ as distinguished from development. It works measurably well also in preparing youth for partic.i.p.ation in the life of applied science and for making money in business and finance. Conscientious hard labour has been given, and is being given, to making it more effective along these lines, and almost every year some new scheme is brought forward enthusiastically, tried out painstakingly, and then cast aside ignominiously for some new and even more ingenious device. The amount of education is enormous; the total of money spent on new foundations, courses, buildings, equipment--on everything but the pay of the teachers--is princely; the devotion of the teachers, themselves, in the face of inadequate wages, is exemplary, and yet, somehow the results are disappointing. The truth is, the development of _character_ is not in proportion to the development of public and private education. The moral standing of the nation, taken as a whole, has been degenerating; in business, in public affairs, in private life, until the standards of value have been confused, the line of demarcation between right and wrong blurred to indistinctness, and the old motives of honour, duty, service, charity, chivalry and compa.s.sion are no longer the controlling motive, or at least the conscious aspiration, of active men.

This is not to say that these do not exist; the period that has seen the retrogression has recorded also a reaction, and there are now perhaps more who are fired by the ardent pa.s.sion for active righteousness, than for several generations, but the average is lower, for where, many times in the past, there has been a broad, general average of decency, now the disparity is great between the motives that drive society as a whole, and its methods of operation, and the remnant that finds itself an unimportant minority. Newspapers are perhaps hardly a fair criterion of the moral status of a people--or of anything else for that matter--but what they record, and the way they do it, is at least an indication of a condition, and after every possible allowance has been made, what they record is a very alarming standard of public and private morality, both in the happenings themselves and in the fas.h.i.+on of their publicity.

No one would claim that the responsibility for this weakening of moral standards rests predominantly on the shoulders of the educational system of today; the causes lie far deeper than this, but the point I wish to make is that the process has not been arrested by education, in spite of its prevalence, and that therefore it is unwise to continue our exclusive faith in its remedial offices. The faith was never well founded. Education can do much, but what it does, or can do, is to foster and develop _inherent possibilities,_ whether these are of character, intelligence or apt.i.tude: it cannot put into a boy or man what was not there, _in posse,_ at birth, and humanly speaking, the diversity of potential in any thousand units is limited only by the number itself. Whether our present educational methods are those best calculated to foster and develop these inherent possibilities, so varied in nature and degree, is the question, and it is a question the answer to which depends largely on whether we look on intelligence, capacity or character as the thing of greatest moment. For those who believe that character is the thing of paramount importance--amongst whom I count myself--the answer must be in the negative.

Nor is an affirmative reply entirely a.s.sured when the question is asked as to the results in the case of intellect and capacity. There are few who would claim that in either of these directions the general standard is now as high as it was, for example, in the last half of the last century. The Great War brought to the front few personalities of the first cla.s.s, and the peace that has followed has an even less distinguished record to date. We may say with truth, I think, that the last ten years have provided greater issues, and smaller men to meet them in the capacity of leaders, than any previous crisis of similar moment. The art of leaders.h.i.+p, and the fact of leaders.h.i.+p, have been lost, and without leaders.h.i.+p any society, particularly a democracy, is in danger of extinction.