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Title: The Crime of Caste in Our Country
Author: Davenport, Benjamin Rush
Language: English
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[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
A Man of the People, who Loved and Served the People.]
THE CRIME OF CASTE IN OUR COUNTRY
Americans Enforce Equality
No Sham Aristocracy of Wealth Permitted by the People
Lesson of 1892 Taught Imitators of
English Aristocracy
History of the Power of People Re-Told
Records for Three Thousand Years Searched for Examples
Bullets, 1861--Ballots, 1892
by
BENJAMIN R. DAVENPORT
Philadelphia:
Keystone Publishing Co.
1893
Copyright by
Joseph W. Morton, Jr.
1892
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS,
WHO BELIEVE
THAT PATRIOTISM, HONESTY, VIRTUE, AND MERIT
ALONE CONSTITUTE INEQUALITY IN MANKIND;
WHO OBJECT TO AND RESENT ARROGANCE AND PRESUMPTION
UPON THE PART OF
THE POSSESSORS OF WEALTH
AND TO THOSE TO WHOM
“CASTE” AND FOREIGN MANNERISMS ARE OBNOXIOUS.
THE AUTHOR.
_DEFINITION OF “CASTE.”_
_The word “Caste,” we derive from a Portuguese word, which means “a
race;” the Portuguese being the early voyagers to the East Indies,
where they found the distinction of classes of society established
under the Brahminical regime of India. Thence it came to be applied as
a term of distinction of society in other countries. There were four
castes in India: 1, the Priests; 2, military; 3, merchants; 4, the
servile classes._
_Members of the lowest caste were forbidden to marry those of the
upper. Children of such unions were outcasts and irredeemably base;
they could not accumulate property, nor change or improve their
conditions. Along with many other senseless and inconvenient rules for
the conduct of the different castes, were such as those forbidding
members of different castes from using the same springs or running
streams, sitting at the same table, eating with the same utensils, or
preparing food in the same vessels. It was contamination for those
of the first class to even mingle in the public highway with those
who were of the lower castes. For convenience, and in the interest of
the commercial prosperity of India, the British, after much exertion,
have been able to eradicate many of these absurd distinctions, and the
habits that resulted therefrom._
_The attempt to create class distinctions in Free America, upon the
basis of wealth or assumed social superiority, is a crime, and as such
will be punished by the Common People._
INDEX.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION 11
CHAPTER I.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei 33
CHAPTER II.
The Alleged General Discontent 65
CHAPTER III.
November 8, 1892 79
CHAPTER IV.
Society as the People Found It November 8, 1892 91
CHAPTER V.
Some Reasons for Wrath 111
CHAPTER VI.
The Aristocratic “Chappie” _vs._ Abraham Lincoln 145
CHAPTER VII.
Hon. John Brisben Walker, on Homestead 161
CHAPTER VIII.
Surrender at Homestead.--Organized Labor Defeated 183
CHAPTER IX.
Possible Fruits of Victory 204
CHAPTER X.
The Cause of Bullets, ’61; Ballots, ’92.--Abraham
Lincoln, the People’s Choice in ’60 225
CHAPTER XI.
Andrew Jackson, 1828 241
CHAPTER XII.
Thomas Jefferson, 1800 249
CHAPTER XIII.
The Revolution in 1776 257
CHAPTER XIV.
The French Revolution 278
CHAPTER XV.
England, 1645 295
CHAPTER XVI.
The German Empire, 1520-1525 307
CHAPTER XVII.
Switzerland, 1424 312
CHAPTER XVIII.
Russia 315
CHAPTER XIX.
Patricians and Plebeians in Rome 320
CHAPTER XX.
Greece.--Venice.--The Rule of “Caste” 324
CHAPTER XXI.
Egypt, 4235 B. C. 330
CHAPTER XXII.
Christianity 333
CHAPTER XXIII.
Not a Democratic Party Victory.--Democracy is Not
the Name of a Party, but of a Principle 346
CHAPTER XXIV.
Not a Defeat of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party 390
CHAPTER XXV.
The Populist: the “Allies.”--Elected by the People;
therefore, with the “Common People” 409
CHAPTER XXVI.
“Flabbyism” and the Income Tax 417
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONCLUSION 428
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece.
Grover Cleveland 32
James B. Weaver 64
John D. Rockefeller 105
Ward MacAllister 110
“The Public be D----d” 115
Mrs. Benjamin Harrison 127
Benjamin Harrison 131
American Queen 136
American Duchess 137
Jay Gould 143
Abe, “The Rail-Splitter” 154
“Chappie” on Fifth Avenue 155
Andrew Carnegie 160
Henry C. Frick 162
The Mistake at Homestead 182
William H. Vanderbilt 219
W. Seward Webb 223
Andrew Jackson 240
Thomas Jefferson 248
INTRODUCTION.
Had a Johnstown flood, a Charleston earthquake, a war with Chili, or a
Homestead strike occurred on November 8, 1892, instead of an election,
those Napoleons of journalism, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York
_Herald_, Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York _World_, and Whitelaw
Reid, of the _Tribune_, would have had a score of representatives on
the scene at once, without thought of expense; would have had every
detail in its most minute particular investigated, and reproduced
every statement, embellished by the pencils of a host of artists,
utterly regardless of expense, keeping, as these magnificent journals
ever have, good faith with the public and their readers, making
lasting monuments of their wonderful papers for coming generations of
journalists to gaze upon.
But a revolution occurred on November 8, 1892, a revolution of the
American people, so overwhelming, so decisive, and so pronounced
as to absolutely stupefy even the genius of the press. Instead of
corps of reporters, artists, special correspondents, speeding over
the land to ascertain the cause--not the result; the cause, the
origin,--of this stupendous surprise, all the great journals of the
country, having each nailed to its flag-staff some theory or text
utterly inconsistent with the result, utterly disproportioned to the
overwhelming revolution, that they have sought by vain endeavor to make
an overwhelming result compatible with and agreeable to some one part
or portion of the cause thereof.
To loudly proclaim, as did the New York _Sun_, that an exhibition of
the will of the people, so pronounced as that of November the 8th,
was occasioned by the Force Bill, is as utterly unreasonable as to
ascribe the magnificent volume within the banks of the Mississippi to
some little trickling rivulet flowing from the plains of Nebraska.
To say, with the _Tribune_, that the grand result pronounced in the
mighty voice of the people was produced by the misunderstanding of
the McKinley Bill, is as groundless as to ascribe the echoing thunder
tones of heaven to the swelling throat of a canary bird. To herald
over the land, “Pauper emigration did it,” with the New York _Herald_,
is about as pregnant with truth as would be the assumption that the
foundation and everlasting strength of Christianity has for its basis
the misguided vaporings of a negro preacher in Richmond, who proclaims,
“The sun do move.” To announce, as did the _World_, that “Tariff reform
and WE, the Democrats, achieved this victory,” is entitled to as much
respect as would be given the utterances of a drummer boy of the
Federal Army at Gettysburg.
It was not any one nor all of these causes that moved the people. Each
newspaper, Democratic or Republican, has selected some nail upon which
it hangs the laurel wreath of victory, inscribed with its own puny text
for which it has fought its little battle, and each newspaper of the
Republican press has covered, with the tattered garments of defeat, its
little text wherein it had proclaimed that the Republican party would
be victorious, and labeled its tattered garment of lack of judgment
with some phrase like, “Disloyalty of Platt,” “Incapacity of Carter,”
“Want of Organization,” “Lack of Popularity and Magnetism of our
Candidate,” “The Voters didn’t come out.” Had the press no part of its
own reputation at stake, they would have searched and delved into the
bosoms of men; yes, neither space nor distance, time nor expense, would
have been spared by the magnates of the newspaper world to ascertain
the true cause. But in ascertaining that true cause, it would have been
necessary, in announcing the same, to stultify themselves in what they
had been predicting, proclaiming, foretelling, and advising, for months
and years.
The truth is in the air; was in the air before the election. ’Twas
breathed; it was thought; yea, better, it was _felt_, by the
great throbbing, aching heart of the men and women of the Union.
From the hovel to the palace, the insidious, poisonous vapor of a
supposed affected, sham aristocracy, with the noxious slime of a
half-proclaimed doctrine of the inequality of man and woman, by reason
of non-possession of wealth, had crept. The air of freedom was polluted
by the emanations arising from the imported English decaying corpse
of aristocracy. It was everywhere. In blindness and self-delusion,
the press made its battle; in the very air of it, howling against
Protection and for Protection, against Force Bill and for Force Bill,
while the wretched, cankerous ulcer was eating into the pride of every
free-born man and woman in the land. The very silence of the people,
the general apathy, was evidence of but one of the symptoms of the
insidious disease with which the body politic was being consumed.
A scene that has been described in Washington just prior to the late
Civil War best illustrates the condition of the people. The city of
Washington was filled with silent, sullen, suspicious men. A sombre
air pervaded the Capital. South Carolina had seceded; the Union was
disintegrating. All that had been, was being forgotten. Old ties
were breaking; old friendships becoming strange. Each man viewed his
neighbor and his friend of yesterday, with a doubt in his mind as to
whether they would fight side by side, or beat each other’s throats
to-morrow. Men paced their rooms in the various hotels, anxious
and careworn, sleepless and fearful. Yet, the surface was still, a
dangerous state of general apathy obtained, if silence and murmuring,
without action, can be called apathy.
It was night, yet the streets were not deserted. Suddenly a window
of the Ebbitt House was raised, a man stepped on to the balcony out
of the window, and in clear, vigorous, and manly tones began to sing
“The Star-Spangled Banner.” Windows were raised; the crowd collected
around the Ebbitt House. It was the signal for the breaking of a dam.
A flood of patriotism burst from the hearts of the hearers; it was the
bugle note, calling upon Americans to save their country. Where there
had been silence, were now outspoken vows of fidelity and loyalty
to the Union. The battle was won that night; not at Gettysburg and
Vicksburg[1].
Just so with the people of America in 1892; for years they have
endured in silence, murmuring and thinking, heart to heart speaking by
responsive heart throbs; not by word. The rich, who had accumulated
their wealth by reason of monopolies which were the necessary
consequence of the Civil War, men who had laid the foundation of
their fortunes by speculating upon the necessities of the government
while contending for the very existence of the Union, had, year by
year, by a stealthy, yet ever-increasing presumption, begun to assume
the possibility of a class distinction, presuming that the possession
of wealth entitled them to privileges, and arrogating to themselves
mannerisms of the titled classes of Europe, adopting crests, coats of
arms, claiming descent from titled foreigners, an exclusiveness in
their social relations, disregarding the laws of morality. The women of
this would-be aristocratic class, flaunting their jewels and laces in
the faces of their poorer sisters, with elevated noses, and garments
drawn aside, feared to touch or gaze at the poor but honest mothers and
wives of America.
It was not much: it was rank presumption; it was nonsense, absurd.
“There’s no such thing possible in America as class distinction; in
fact, it does not exist, cannot exist; the ‘Four Hundred’ of New York
is a joke, a by-word, a stupendous folly.”
But, good people of the said “Four Hundred,” remember that while the
American is neither a Socialist nor an Anarchist, when you presume to
make a distinction, socially, between the poor man, his wife, children,
and mother, you touch him in the most sensitive part of his being. You
may have your villas at Newport, you may ape the English fashionable
season in London by a similar one in New York; you may have your steam
yachts; you may ride to hounds; your women may marry divorced dukes and
puppified sons of lords; but, mark you, claim no privilege, attempt no
distinction between yourselves and the poorest honest man and woman in
the land. Equality is the jewel that every true American holds most
dear. No free son of our Republic will sell this treasure for gold,
whether it be offered directly as a bribe or shrewdly tendered under
the guise of “protected” wages.
It did not do for the Republican press of the country to demonstrate
that Protection brought higher wages to the workingman. They might
have proved that by voting the Republican ticket the workingman’s pay
would have been a hundred dollars a day; they might have shown him
that in point of pocket he would be eternally blest by supporting the
party which he deemed identified with those who attempted to force
“caste” upon our country. It is not a question of money; the equality
of man is the American’s birthright. For it, our fathers sought these
shores, contending with privation, enduring untold labor, dangers,
and death. For it, our forefathers fought the most powerful nation on
earth, when they were but a scattered handful of colonists, scattered
from Massachusetts to Georgia. When the attempt was made--that it was
attempted, there can be no doubt--to buy the American’s birthright by
preaching to him “increased wages,” it failed.
Take every speech of every Republican orator, every bit of Republican
literature, every editorial in the Republican papers, all speak from
but one text, viz.: “Workmen, farmers, in fact, all ye good people
of America, you can make more money under Protection;” which plainly
means, “Let Protection and the Republican party (which you designate in
your hearts as The Rich Man’s party) continue in power, accumulating
wealth, creating class distinctions, and you can have better wages.”
In other words, “Sell us the right to create a Republic like that of
Venice, wherein the rich became the privileged class, and we will give
you better pay.”
The Democratic press, orators, and literary bureau were no better.
They no more understood the feeling of the people, for their continual
cry was, “Free Trade, and you will be better off in pocket.” They
excoriated trusts, monopolies; they talked of corruption and what would
be done to benefit, IN POCKET, the poor man, if the Democratic party
came in power; just as blind as their brothers of the Republican party,
they appealed to the American pocketbook.
While every Democratic orator knew that he felt the sting of the
venomous and growing reptile, “caste,” in no place in the literature of
the Democratic party, in no paper, can be found one single reference
to the pride of the American in his citizenship, in his equality. It
seemed as if each man thought that he alone endured a pang upon the
subject of “caste” and social distinction; for, bear in mind, the man
with one million will feel the slight and attempted distinction between
his family and the family with ten millions, just as keenly as the
cashier of a bank will feel the distinction that the president attempts
to make between their social positions; the farmer with ten acres feels
towards the farmer with a hundred acres, exactly the same as the farmer
with a hundred does towards the farmer possessed of a thousand acres.
This disease was not confined to the horny-handed sons of toil; the
heart in the hovel was not the only one that ached. It was not confined
to the follower of the plow; but its pestilential breath pervaded every
home in the land, leaving everyone below the multi-millionaire unhappy.
The clerk of the dry-goods store was hurt because the floor walker
assumed a superiority; the floor walker, because the proprietor assumed
it; the proprietor, because the importer from whom he purchased goods
assumed a distinction; and so it continued, from the longshoreman up,
until it reached our millionaire would-be princes, who ape and mimic
English life and manners, leaving, as it arose, a sting of increasing
bitterness; but each man felt too proud to give utterance to what he
thought it shamed him even to recognize as a sensation.
Hence the apathy on the surface, the sentiment confessed only to
themselves and in the closet of the voting booth. Because the people
had identified the Republican party with the class of men who were
striving to create this class distinction, and because of the very
charm of the word Democracy to their aching hearts, they voted the
Democratic ticket--not Democrats alone in a political sense, but men
who believe in democracy in the broad sense that St. Paul preached on
Mars Hill at Athens, in the broad sense that Christ’s life demonstrated.
It was useless, against this first overmastering, powerful emotion in
the American breast, to call upon the old veterans of the Civil War, to
whom the Republican party had given increased pensions. It was useless
to cry even to the negro, to whom the Republican party had given
freedom. He, too, had become imbued with the spirit of equality. The
wealthy could not purchase the birthright of the veteran by appealing
to his pocketbook, any more than they could that of the laborer.
He had shed his blood in the cause of equality, resisting then the
assumed superiority of blood and birth so often flaunted in his face by
gentlemen from the South.
In 1861, the “mudsills” of the North and West, the tillers of the soil,
had shouldered their muskets at the call of that great man of the
people, Abraham Lincoln, leaving home and loved ones to face unknown
dangers and diseases in the cause of EQUALITY. Down in their hearts
then was a sentiment which is revived in 1892. That thing which had
been the hardest to bear, for the laboring settler of the West and the
workman of the North, was the existence of “caste” in the South, and
the supposed superiority of the Southerners in the halls of Congress.
Love of the Union was the outspoken, pronounced cause of their coming
at Lincoln’s call; but there was something behind and beneath all of
that, that had been growing for years; it was resentment, because of
the South’s assumption of “caste” in our country.
The question was settled, by these very veterans, from 1861 to ’65 with
bullets, and it was utterly unavailing to call upon them for ballots in
1892 against the cause for which they fought in 1861.
The very negro said to himself: “You gave us freedom, the Republican
party, but the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln was purely a
Democratic party, in a broader sense.” To the negro’s mind, no three
Presidents of the past will more thoroughly represent a picture
pleasing to the eye of the enslaved or the lower classes, than
Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. All were Democrats--men who believed
in the people and labored for the people, leading lives of pure
simplicity, affecting no superiority of rank or position. It was
useless to attempt to hold the negro vote.
The very name of the “People’s Party,” so strongly did it indicate and
describe this sentiment of the people; enabled that party, with all its
incongruous doctrines, to carry the electoral votes of some States of
the Union.
How frivolous seemed the claim of the Democratic papers and
politicians, that the popularity of Grover Cleveland, and the
confidence that people had in his rectitude and honesty, caused this
revolution. How it appears to be trifling with truth to ascribe the
victory of the people, the true Democracy, to the “masterly manner in
which Mr. Harrity managed the campaign.” Mr. Whitney’s diplomacy, Mr.
Dickinson’s energy and ability, Mr. Sheehan’s shrewdness, sink into
utter insignificance, and become as a grain of sand upon the seashore,
where they have happened to be tossed by the mighty wave of the ocean
of feeling, full of resentment, that filled the hearts of the people.
Their little all was but the piping of a penny whistle in a gale of
wind. W. H. Vanderbilt’s four words, “The public be damned,” uttered
from the pedestal of $150,000,000, made a greater impression, and
became more indelibly impressed upon the minds of the whole people,
ranging in wealth from $10,000,000 to less than a cent, than all the
management of Harrity, the diplomacy of Whitney, the skill of Sheehan,
or the energy of Dickinson. The reported expression of Mr. Russell
Harrison, when asked, while in London, what his position was in
America, as son of the President,--“Oh, about what the Prince of Wales
is here,”--was thought of and resented to greater purpose than was
produced by all the speeches of the eloquent Cockran.
The women of the land made more speeches, and effective speeches,
to the voters of the land when they thought of the much-advertised
American Duchess. They had felt most keenly--for woman’s life is social
much more than man’s--the attempted social distinction; and, strange as
it may appear to some of the skillful politicians that they had never
recognized it, the women of America had become largely Democratic, and
in them the Democratic party had its most powerful orators; for even
the most brutal, neglectful, and unloving husband resents in a vigorous
manner the least slight or insult offered to his wife. Upon every
occasion, gathering, entertainment, charitable undertaking, some wife
had been slighted. Because of the attempted creation of “caste,” she
became a powerful factor, at once, in the campaign of the people. It
mattered not whether her husband was a millionaire or not, no matter in
what portion of society,--the clerk in a dry-goods store, the farmer,
the banker, the millionaire,--the same result would follow. Some would
attempt to arrogate to themselves a better position, and claim certain
superiority over her. The banker’s wife feels as keenly the slight of
the wife of a railroad president, as the wife of a longshoreman does
any assumed difference in social position on the part of the wife of
the retail grocer.
This all-prevailing crime of “caste” does not, like most crimes are
supposed to do, originate in the gutter, but it permeates the mass of
the population, like the source of a great river, starting at the very
top of the mountain, and dripping constantly downward.
The example of the rich in imitating the immoralities of the privileged
classes of Europe, presents a spectacle of presumed immunity from the
consequences of their crimes which would be as detrimental to the
continuation of the purity of American homes, as the increase of the
feeling of “caste” would be to the happiness of the people. A most
beautiful illustration of corruption in high places was presented
in the disgusting and nauseating Drayton-Borrowe affair, wherein the
daughter of an Astor, a multi-millionaire, one of the members of the
supposed upper “caste,” is paraded before the public as imitating the
vices and immoralities of the Court of Charles II. Yet these same
Astors would claim, by reason of their assumed position, some exemption
from the result of the crime, which would not be accorded to the wife
of a farmer, clerk, or a bank cashier, to say nothing of the fact
that, had this beautiful sample of America’s sham aristocracy been
a laborer’s wife, she would, by the peculiar ethics adopted by the
corrupt English aristocracy, have been a fit subject for the police
court.
Another of the disgusting apings of foreign vices, along with the
foolish claim of “caste,” is exhibited in the delightful Deacon
assassination in France. Another representative of American
aristocracy, so-called, would play the part of a French Countess.
Fortunately for the world, the man Deacon had left remaining a few
drops of American blood in his veins, and rid the world of a brute,
as any honest American laboring man would have done. The class which
the shameless imitators pretend to represent in America assumed the
privilege abroad (in Europe) to indulge in drunkenness, debauchery,
gambling, and general immorality; leaving the virtues, sobriety,
honesty, and purity to the lower classes. In America, there being but
one class, those who assume to imitate the manners of the immoral, to
carouse and debauch, render themselves obnoxious to the mass of the
people, and that political party which becomes identified in the minds
of the people with any set, or “caste,” possessing such distorted
principles, becomes correspondingly objectionable. There can be but
one law of morals in America. Debauchery, drunkenness, and dishonesty,
though sheltered by a palace, are as odoriferous to the senses of the
people as the polluted air from a sewer.
There are many able and learned men of America who think seriously and
have thought intently for years upon this subject, but hesitated to
utter sentiments that falsely and absurdly are called socialistic and
anarchical. There is no desire upon the part of Americans to deprive
any citizen of his property and his freedom to enjoy the same as he
will, so long as he has due appreciation of and respect for the rights
of others. No man in the Republic can possess any right, by reason of
his wealth, greater than the poorest in the land. Each citizen of a
republic, in consideration of the liberty that he enjoys, surrenders
all claim to be anything except one of the people, and any assumed
immunity from the consequences of his acts is objectionable, and will
be visited upon his head. The roistering sons of millionaires, though
clad in evening dress and drunk with champagne, are no less disgusting
rowdies than the sons of the laborer, hilarious as the result of gin
drunk in a groggery. Unfortunately for the Republican party, in looking
over the row of America’s money princes (?), we find “Republican”
written behind almost every name. The villa at Newport, the castle in
Scotland, the Tally Ho coach, is generally owned by a Republican. In
fact, our would-be aristocrats began to assume that it was almost a
disgrace to be anything else than a Republican; one would lose “caste”
thereby.
The Republican party, of course, is not responsible for this. The
Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, than whom there is no better
example of a patriotic, earnest, honest American, Christian, father,
husband, son, gentleman, and soldier, is worthy to be an example to the
young men of our country. He was not responsible for the impression
made by this excrescence that has grown like some hideous and poisonous
fungus upon the stalwart oak planted by Abraham Lincoln. The decay
has arisen from this polluting attachment. The McKinley Bill and
Protection, while possessing many points of excellence it behooves the
country to examine with care before erasing from the statute-books, are
not responsible for the natural animosity of the people toward this
child, deformed, misshapen, Sham Aristocracy, clinging to the skirts of
the Republican party. The attack was upon this hideous tumor, and, by
its amputation by the people, the life-blood of the Republican party
has become exhausted; for the operation necessarily was made painful,
deep-felt, and severe. The Democratic party derived all the benefit
from the defeat of the Republican party, at the hands of the people,
without having contributed thereto to any amazing extent.
The result of the election of 1892 should be as the warning written on
the wall was to Belshazzar. The rich must understand, and learn now in
time, that they hold their lives, their liberty, and their property
in this Republic only by the will of the people; that the people,
Democratic always in the broad sense of democracy, are long-suffering;
but retribution, as surely as night doth follow day, may come, if
this warning be not heeded, in some more terrible shape than an
overwhelming defeat, at the polls, of that party to which the rich
attach themselves. It is not well to flaunt riches or claim privileges
or “caste” before the face of a free people.
It would be well for the rich to learn this lesson. It was taught by
the people under the name of the Republican party when they elected
Lincoln; under the name of the Democratic party when they elected
Andrew Jackson; under the name of the Democratic party when they
elected Thomas Jefferson. It was taught to rich and powerful England
when she lost a continent in 1776; it was taught to Anglo-Saxon England
when Charles I. lost his head; it was taught to France when the
long-suffering peasantry and poor broke down the barriers of “caste,”
and flooded her fair fields with the tide of blood.
It has been taught in every nation--Rome, Greece, Egypt. The people
will suffer long and much, but the resentment occasioned by “caste” and
social distinction far outweighs any advantages that money can buy them.
November 8, 1892, showed that the workmen couldn’t be bought, the
farmer couldn’t be bought, the veteran couldn’t be bought, the negro
couldn’t be bought, by all the fair promises held out by the party
of Protection, because this cup of nectar was poisoned by the deadly
essence of “caste,” which means extinction of all that the people
hold dear. Should the Democratic party create, cause, or have arise
under its administration, and become attached to that party, any set,
or “caste,” claiming any superiority over their fellow-citizens, the
Democratic party would be killed, though the eternal sun might never
shine again upon America should that party be defeated.
The purpose and object for which this book is written is not for the
instruction of the people as to how they _are_ to do, but it is, if
possible, to put notes to the music that has been singing in the hearts
of the Common People,--for we are all Common People. That song which
echoes our own sentiments, even though we cannot sing the song, is
always the sweetest. The man who tells the story we have thought and
felt, is the greatest writer to us. Dickens is dear to the hearts of
us all because he echoes and puts in words the sentiments of our own
souls. If this book tell, in words, that which has been throbbing in
the breasts of the people, it but articulates that which they have
spoken silently for themselves. The author is one of the people, but he
has felt what he believes others have felt. The book is not intended
to aid or to harm either the Democratic or the Republican party.
The writer is a supporter of ANY party, call it what you will, that
represents the BEST INTERESTS, THE HONOR, DIGNITY, VIRTUE, of AMERICANS
and American homes.
“Is there, for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and a’ that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by.
We dare be poor, for a’ that;
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.
“What though on homely fare we dine,
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon his might
Guid faith he manna fa’ that,
For a’ that, and a’ that,
The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worth
Are higher ranks than a’ that.
“Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May hear the gree, and a’ that,
That man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.”
[Illustration: GROVER CLEVELAND.
Selected by the “Common People,” November 8, 1892, to Represent the
Interests of the Masses against the Classes.]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This story has frequently been related, verbally, but the Author
has never seen it in print. Its authenticity, however, is fully
established.
CHAPTER I.
VOX POPULI, VOX DEI.
The voice of the people, is indeed, the voice of God, and in grand and
tremendous tones has that voice resounded through the land. The 8th of
November, 1892, will long be remembered in the history of our country
as one which stands in the annals of time as a monument to the might
of the people, upon which might be carved in letters of everlasting
durability, “Do not tread on me.” The tidal wave, so often referred to
by the newspapers, has come with unexpected momentum, washing aside the
puny politicians as thistledown on the mighty stream of the Mississippi.
That mirror of public opinion, so generally correct, so apt to be
accurate, is absolutely stupefied by the tremendous character of the
uprising of the people. Even those who fondly hoped for victory,
among the Democratic journalists, stand in reverential awe before the
stupendous results so noiselessly and irresistibly effected by the
masses. They vainly seek, like one bereft of sight, for the delusive
cause of this great outpouring of Democratic sentiment.
That most preëminent and respectable organ of mugwump principles,
the New York _Times_, of November 9, 1892, sounds the praises of
Cleveland and his popularity as the cause; which is pardonable, as the
_Times_ has consistently closed its eyes before the blinding light of
Cleveland’s preëminence and brilliancy, and refused to see anything
else or any other issue in the campaign, arguing that by the magic of
the one word, “Cleveland,” victory could be attained. Its leader on
the result of the people’s resentment to the crime of “caste” in our
country, is a sounding eulogy upon Cleveland, with here and there a
glimmer of light breaking upon the vision.
“Meanwhile the victory of Mr. Cleveland is the most signal since
the re-election of Lincoln in the last year of the war for the
Union.”
It is noticeable in this paragraph that Cleveland’s preëminence so
overshadowed, in the mind of the _Times_, Lincoln, that the prefix
of “Mr.” is used before Cleveland’s name, while just plain “Lincoln”
is good enough for the man who preserved the Union. One would hardly
expect, therefore, that the _Times_ would do more than shout the
praises of Cleveland, and give no credit to the sense of the people for
their victory. Quoting from their article:--
“The nomination of Mr. Cleveland was dictated by the general
sentiment of the party, inspired wholly by confidence in his
integrity, purity, firmness, and sound sense. It was unaided by
any organization, promoted by no machine, advocated by no literary
bureau, appealed to no base passion. * * * * * * His election is
due to the recognition by hundreds of thousands of sound-hearted
American citizens, who had not before acted with the Democratic
party, that under his guidance, with its avowed policy, that
party was a fit depository of the powers of the Government. It
is, moreover, preëminently a victory of courage and fidelity to
principle. The Chicago Convention, in taking Mr. Cleveland as its
candidate, planted itself firmly on the ground of principle.”
It is perfectly plain to be seen that, from a source where the wreath
of victory dangles, inscribed with but one word, and that “Cleveland,”
one could hardly expect to find information as to the cause that
brought about this revolution in the minds of the people. Not that
there is any objection to the praises of Cleveland, because all that
they say of him is believed by thousands throughout the country, and
the same thing is believed to be true of thousands of other men whom
the Democratic party might have nominated. Horace Greeley, could he
have been taken from his tomb and reanimated, would just as surely
have been elected upon the Democratic ticket, had the people believed,
as they did, that that ticket represented that “caste,” moneyed
aristocracy, to which they were bitterly in their heart of hearts
opposed.
The New York _World_, controlled by one of the brightest, keenest, and
shrewdest of men in the journalistic field, in an excellent editorial
of November 10, 1892, proceeds to tell what the victory means. And one
sentence particularly would be significant, if followed by a little
definition of “plutocracy.” Were this word significant enough to cover
the objectionable features of the peculiar kind of “caste” which had
become identified with the Republican party, it would be sufficient,
but such is not the understanding of the word.
New York _World_, November 10th: “The President elect is the very
embodiment of conscientious caution. He is preëminently conservative.
His administration will mean economy, reform, retrenchment in every
branch of the Government. The victory does mean putting a stop to riot,
extravagance, profligacy, and corruption.”
Few, very few, men who voted the Democratic ticket believe that there
had been corruption, profligacy, under the Republican administration.
The people were not directly affected by the aforesaid charges. The
victory did not mean that.
The people are no longer political drones; they are thinking men, moved
by sentiments and forces which have not as yet been explained by the
most laborious newspaper articles written in the heat of the campaign,
actuated in many cases by partisan interests, party journalists,
aristocratic tendencies, and political affiliations. Each would see
only his side of the party shield, and that was sure to be golden.
Mr. Cleveland, in his speech at the Manhattan Club, New York,
commenting on this fact, states: “The American people have become
political, and more thoughtful, and more watchful than they were ten
years ago. They are considering now, vastly more than they were then,
political principles and party policies, in distinction from party
manipulation and distribution of rewards for political services and
activities.”
The reason for this is obvious. The country has been flooded of late
years with newspapers, brought down to a nominal price; the people
have read them thoughtfully; have written to them for explanations
of difficulties and doubts arising in their minds, and have profited
by these explanations. They have seen paraded in the newspapers the
exhibitions of the pride of “caste”; they have seen chronicled the
doings of the American Duchess with her divorced duke; they have
learned to hate that which the Republican party would have preached
to them as the source of all their happiness and prosperity. The
Republican party, viewing it only as a means whereby fortunes were
accumulated, espoused the principles which created a desire in the
minds of divorced dukes, puppified lords, and degenerate descendants of
English nobility, from cupidity, to marry America’s fair daughters. The
cheapness of the newspapers placed within the reach of the poorest the
information upon which he based his faith. The penny paper is the great
leveler of the land.
The New York _Herald_, of November 13th, commenting on the recent
election, takes a biblical text as its theme: “Then were the people of
Israel divided into two parts. Half of the people followed Tibni and
half followed Omri; but the people that followed Omri prevailed against
the people that followed Tibni: so Tibni died and Omri reigned,” and
says:--
“In those days, questions in dispute were settled by pitched
battles. In these modern times, the arbitrament of war has become
wellnigh obsolete, and national policies are decided by ballots
instead of bayonets. We doubt if the history of the world records
a spectacle as inspiring or instructive as that presented by the
American people on Tuesday last, when by an orderly revolution
they sent one class of political ideas to the rear, and another
class to the front. The party leaders on both sides may have gone
into the conflict for personal emolument, or some advantage for
their followers, which is scarcely concealed under the words,
‘Patronage and Purposes,’ but the body of the people were the
rank and file--the merchant, mechanic, artisan, and farmer; they
cast their votes for the greatest good to the greatest number,
because the prosperity of the whole means the prosperity of each.”
In other words, 65,000,000 people have made themselves acquainted with
the principles which underlie their government; have learned, through
innumerable newspapers, which fall on hill and prairie as thick as
snowflakes in December, the value and effect of the differing national
policies, and on election day, expressed an intelligent and honest
opinion.
In his work on “The American Commonwealth,” James Bryce put the matter
in terse and brilliant language, as follows:--
“The parties are not the ultimate force in the conduct of affairs.
Public opinion--that is, the mind and conduct of the whole
nation--is the opinion of the persons who are included in the
parties, for the parties taken together are the nation, and the
parties, each claiming to be its true exponent, seek to use it for
their purposes. Yet, it stands above the parties, being cooler
and larger-minded than they are. It awes party leaders, and holds
in check party organization. No one openly ventures to resist it.
It is the product of a greater number of minds than in any other
country, and it is more indisputably sovereign. It is the central
point in the whole American policy.”
The people have spoken. Democracy is triumphant. Democratic principles
have prevailed. They are rooted in the hearts of the common people.
The voice of God has spoken. To you, Mr. Cleveland, is entrusted a
great task. You took the enemy in flank, you invaded his own territory;
you put him upon the defensive, and the defence was unsuccessful, while
his offensive operations against the Democratic stronghold crippled
and embarrassed. You have the love of the American people. Nourish
it; cherish it as the apple of your eye, and your name will go down
into history, linked with the name of Jackson, Jefferson, and Abraham
Lincoln.
Mr. Thomas Dolan, a well-known manufacturer, of Philadelphia, told
some plain truths in an impromptu speech at the Clover Club banquet in
that city, shortly after the election. Some parts of it have become
public. Mr. Dolan was asked, jokingly, why “it snowed the next day.”
His answer had the pungent, incisive, trenchant quality characteristic
of the man. “You ask me,” he said, “why it snowed the next day. If
you want an answer, I will give it to you; but I must give it in
plain terms, for I can speak in no other way. It ‘snowed the next
day’ because there was the most stupendous lying in this campaign of
any that I have ever known. It has been said here this evening, that
this was a campaign without personality and without mud-flinging. That
may have been so in the treatment of candidates, but in reference
to others, it was a campaign of shameless lying, vituperation, and
calumny. The manufacturers of the country, some of those here to-night,
were held up as thieves and robbers who are stealing what belongs
to labor. The very men who are giving labor its employment, and are
seeking to assure it good wages, were assailed and denounced as its
worst enemies. The Democratic press was full of abuse of those who
have done their best to build up the prosperity of the country. There
never was more unscrupulous lying than there has been in the dishonest
and demagogic attempt to array class against class, and it is because
of this persistent lying, imposed upon the people for the time being,
that ‘it snowed the next day.’” This is, of course, an explanation by a
_representative_ Republican, of Republican defeat.
The New York _World_, of November 20th, gives a better explanation,
though not a true one:--
Republican politicians are searching in all manner of
out-of-the-way corners for the causes of their party’s defeat.
They are carefully overlooking the actual cause which lies open to
less prejudiced view. The Republican party was defeated because
its politicians have strayed away from honest and patriotic
courses. They have worshiped strange gods; they have allied
themselves and their party with the plutocratic interests of the
country; they have betrayed the people to the monopolists; they
have sought to substitute money for manhood as the controlling
power; they have tried to buy elections; they have squandered
the substance of the country, in order that there might be no
reduction in oppressive taxes, which indirectly, but enormously,
benefit a favored class. The party is punished for its sins. It
has forfeited popular confidence by its misconduct. It has ceased
to deserve power, and the people have taken power from it.
Murat Halstead, a deep thinker, wielding a forceful pen, writing about
the recent mistakes of the Republican party, says:--
“There was too much ‘Tariff Reform’ and too little attention
to practical politics in the conduct of the recent Republican
campaign. The mistakes of the Republican party were many. They
attempted too much tariff reform and too much ballot reform and
too much civil service reform, and strangely mingled too little
and too great attention to practical politics. The high character
of the Harrison administration was not of the ‘fetching’ sort.
There were strong and distinguished Republicans sharply opposed to
another Harrison administration, in California, Nevada, Colorado,
Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York,
Maine, and several of the Southern States. In some States, there
was grief because he did too much for Senators and too little for
Representatives, and in others, the Senators suffered because the
Representatives were especially recognized; and there were scores
of personal irritations that were nothing in themselves, but in
the aggregate, became an element of mischief that was magnified
into disaster. The ranks seemed solid toward the close of the
campaign, but there were weaknesses, here and there, known to
those whose information was from the interior. There were three
things that seemed to give assurances of Republican success:
First, the country was prosperous, and the economic value of
protection seemed to be demonstrated, and nowhere more clearly
than in the Homestead strike. Second, it was the testimony of home
statistics and foreign news that the McKinley tariff was helping
our workingmen, and had a powerful tendency to the transfer of
industries to our shores, while the reciprocity treaties were
aiding our manufacturers and food producers alike to new markets.
Two of the grandest steamships on the Atlantic, one the swiftest
ever built, were to hoist the stars and stripes and be transferred
from the British navy to our own, and this was understood to be
the dawn of an era of restoration of our lost strength on the
seas. Third, President Harrison was revealed to the nation in
his administration as a man of the highest order of ability, of
industry that never wavered, and will that was unflinching and
executive, while he was the readiest, most varied, and striking
public speaker of his time. We have had no President with more
influence with his own administration than he wielded. The
Republicans have so long been accustomed to holding at least a
veto on the Democratic party, that they could not be aroused to
the full appreciation of the danger of giving that party the whole
power of Government. The masses of men declined, in this fast
age and rapidly-developing country, to be warned by the events
of more than thirty years ago. The first surprise was public
apathy. There were few displays. It was not a great summer and
autumn for brass bands and torches. It was not a great year for
newspapers. Those that largely increased their circulation did it
outside of presidential excitements and political attractions. The
second surprise was the immense registration. Then it was seen
that comparative public quietude did not mean lack of interest.
Everybody knew something was going to happen. Republicans were
cheered, and said: ‘This means the quiet vote. The secret ballot
is with us. Times are good. There’ll be a big vote, on the quiet,
to let well enough alone. Harrison is a great President, and it
is the will of the people that he shall continue his good works.’
The Democrats said: ‘The secret ballot is with us this time.
The workingman is dissatisfied. He gets more wages than he does
abroad, but he holds that he is robbed of his share of the riches
of the land, and the quiet vote is with us. The workshops are
for a change.’ There was much in what they said. The workingmen
gave the Democrats New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana,
Illinois, and the election; but was there ever such a combination
of antagonisms gathered into an opposition force, to carry the
Government by storm, as that which the Democracy was enabled
to make? Contrast the Democratic platforms of Connecticut and
Kentucky. They are more flagrantly opposed to each other than the
Minneapolis and Chicago papers. Connecticut is rankly Protection,
and Kentucky rabidly Free Trade. Both are for freedom. The
Democrats joined with the Populists in several States to give
Weaver votes, and in other States terrorized, threatened,
assaulted, and cheated his opponents.
“Take the money matters; we find the Democracy are red dog, wild
cat, rag baby, silver pig, or gold bug, according to the local
demands. They are all for Cleveland, however. The very ferocity
of the personal factions of the Democratic party in New York
was converted into steam power to drive the Cleveland machine.
There was emulation in his service, between his old friends and
enemies; and the enemies of other days exceeded the friends in
the competitive struggle. The Democrats who hoped he would be
defeated, and there were many thousands of them, were the most
particular of men to vote for him because they felt their future
in the party depended upon their ‘record.’ What they wanted was to
be beaten in the ‘give-a-way game,’ and they trusted to the last
to be able to say: ‘There, you see how it is; we told you he was
impossible. We’ve done all we could, and it is just as we said.’
“When the shriekers of calamity are able to harness the prosperity
of the country and turn it against the Government; when the
beneficiaries of a great policy turn against it and vote it down;
when those who lick the cream of good times, hunger and thirst
for experimental changes; when opposing interests and factions,
principles and purposes, personalities and all the potencies
of all the fads, can be united for a common purpose, there are
surprises for citizens who have held in a commonplace way, but
the unreasonable and inconsistent, the unwarrantable and the
illogical, must also be the impracticable.
“It has been remarked of St. Petersburg, that in case of the
occurrence of, first, a great flood in the Neva; second,
extraordinary high tide; third, a long, strong blow from the gulf,
the city must be overwhelmed. The years, the decades, and the
centuries come and go without the disaster. It was long understood
in the Ohio valley that there would be a flood beating all in
history, and competing with Indian tradition, if there happened,
in the order set down, these events: (1) during a wintry night,
a sudden general rain, followed quickly by a freeze, covering
Western New York and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, West
North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana with a sheet of
ice; (2) if, upon this vast glassy surface, there should fall a
series of heavy snows; (3) if, upon the snow, there should come
rain, beginning near the Mississippi, which should be full and
filling all the streams, locking them from the mouths against
speedy discharge; (4) and if there followed rain-storms for a
week, so distributed as to boom all the rivers in order from west
to east; (5) culminating with three tremendous downpours over all
the mountain regions, sweeping from the glazed earth the whole
accumulation of snows, and so timed as to tumble all the floods
at once into the Ohio, whose channel has been obstructed by the
piers of many bridges, and a habit of encroaching upon it, then
the river would make a demonstration memorable and marvelous.
All this took place, just as we have set it down, five winters
ago, and the high-water-mark at Cincinnati is seventy feet above
low-water-mark. Up to this, the boast of the old folks in the
valley was, that they had seen ‘the flood of ’32,’ and there could
never be anything like it. The world did not now-a-days afford
such spectacles as they had beheld in ’32! A few dingy old houses
had incredible high-water ’32 marks upon it. If the river looked
angry, and rushed through a few low streets, the veterans would
say: ‘You should have seen the flood of ’32. ’Twas the biggest
thing we ever had, or ever will have. But they do say the Indians
said, they once hitched canoes to walnut trees away above the ’32
mark; but them Indians was such liars.’ The flood of 1885 beat
that of 1832 two feet, and the flood of 1887 was nearly seven feet
above the old high-water-mark. Averaging the chances, it will not
happen again for one hundred years. The river Rhine has a way of
rising at the same time with the Ohio, and was higher in 1885
than it had been in two hundred years. There was favoring the
Democratic party this year, such a combination of circumstances as
that which made an Ohio flood seem a prodigy. The high-water-mark
is astounding. The country is still here. There is something to
eat, and even to drink. Such a Democratic disaster will not be due
again for a generation.”
John Russell Young, the brilliant journalist, writing in the
Philadelphia _Evening Star_, quoted by the New York _Press_, of
November 19th, has his explanation for the defeat ready: “Communities
are like men, like women, like children, like dogs. Why do they do it?
Why does a man buy wildcat stocks? Why does a woman rave over a bonnet,
or marry a student of divinity? Why? Because we are more or less fools,
even as the good Lord made us fools, and if we were not fools, it would
be a teasing, tiresome world. Why does a boy go to bed as cross as
the roaring forties after his Christmas dinner? He has had too much
mince pie. The country has had too much mince pie. It kicks. It kicked
after Quincy Adams, the best of all Presidents. It kicked after Van
Buren, who was as downy as an Angora cat. It kicked after Arthur, whose
administration was sunshine. It kicks after Harrison, the radiant,
prosperous Government. Too much mince pie! Cleveland comes in because
of his medicinal properties. We must take to our herbs now and then.”
The practical politicians of the Republican party feel it incumbent
upon them to give their version of the great defeat. James S.
Clarkson, who, for many years, has been a guiding spirit among
Republican leaders, of the late verdict says: “It is an order from the
American people for a change in the industrial economic policy of the
Government.” He charges that the Republican party has lost strength
and votes among the rich and among the people of independent means,
who now want cheap labor; also among the workingmen, who have come to
believe that free trade will cheapen the expense of living, while the
Trades-Unions will still keep up their wages. He says: “The result is
not a personal defeat of President Harrison, nor really a defeat of
the party. It was a Protection defeat, a repudiation of high tariff, a
Republican reverse in a field where it put aside all the nobler issues,
and staked everything on economic and mercenary issues.”
The surprising overturn of affairs in the distinctly Republican State
of Illinois is accounted for by Senator Cullom by distinctive issues
other than the McKinley and Force Bills: “Our losses in this State are
mainly due to the school question, but in the nation at large they
are due, in my judgment, to the passage of the McKinley law, and the
impression in the minds of the masses in regard to it. When it was
passed, the people expected us to revise the tariff, and revise it in
the direction of reducing duties, and, while we did make reductions,
they were dissatisfied because so many increases were made. When
the bill came to the Senate from the House, we cut many of these in
pieces, but, when it went back to the House and got into the Conference
Committee, enough of them were restored to put us on the defensive
and at a great disadvantage. Yes, I think our defeat can fairly be
attributed to the McKinley Bill,” and Senator Cullom represents the
State of Abraham Lincoln. The prairies that gave breath to the typical
champion of the people, produced this statesman, who, representing
the State of a man who stands first in the minds of the people as
their representative, sees only the indications of the mercenary
spirit of the people. How Abraham Lincoln would have gauged correctly,
instinctively, the heart-throbs of the people whom he assumed to
represent in the councils of the nation!
Senator Cullom, in his opinion, mirrors only the reflection, cast upon
the surface of his mind, by the aristocratic and multi-millionaired
Senate of the Union, in which he occupies a seat. He sees only the
cold, hard dollars and cents at issue.
He does not appreciate, as Abraham Lincoln would have done, the
feeling of the people whom he pretends to represent. In every prairie
home of Illinois there was an insulted wife or mother by the assumed
distinctions made by the would-be aristocrats of the Republican party.
Stevenson’s speeches awakened no echo in their hearts, except that it
gave an opportunity for the exhibition of the old, old story, written
by the swords of the Anglo-Saxon people, “Caste is a crime.” That the
State of all States, Illinois, which gave to the Federal Union Abraham
Lincoln, should be presented in the sedate Senate of the Union, by a
man whose views are so narrowed by the horizon of his own thoughts as
to express a sentiment like the foregoing; namely, that the people
were governed in their selection of their representative, the Chief
Magistrate, by the power of the pocketbook; to be so unresponsive to
the throbbing hearts of his constituency, is most disappointing.
Editors can be at times epigrammatic, and this election has brought
forth some keen and trenchant opinions on the causes of defeat.
Here are a few of them. All of them seek, as a child playing
blind-man’s-buff, in darkness, for that which, had the bandage which
blinds them been removed from their eyes, would have been made plain,
and which was occasioned by their own presumption in assuming to
measure the depths and power of the people’s feelings and impulses:--
Clark Howell, in the Atlanta _Constitution_, says: “Now, after
thirty-one years, since Buchanan’s Democratic administration, another
political revolution has taken place, and, as a result, the election
of 1852, which destroyed the Whig party, is repeated in the Waterloo
defeat of the Republican party, and the question is, will this defeat
finish the career of that party? The probability is that it will.”
The Atlanta _Constitution_, of November 17th, in a brisk editorial,
states that “Colonel J. B. McCullagh, the esteemed editor of the St.
Louis _Globe-Democrat_, is not very happy. Naturally, he has his
regrets and his hours of gloom, but he is not so miserable that he is
unable to appreciate a mystery that crosses and recrosses his path in
broad daylight. He cannot, for instance, understand the post-mortem
talk of his party leaders. ‘Curiously enough,’ he says, ‘they are now
claiming that Harrison was defeated by the very things which they then
said must insure his success.’ Of course, these statements have a
humorous twang, but it seems to us that a Republican as prominent as
Colonel McCullagh would be willing to drop a veil over these gibbering
evidences of human frailty. After all is said, there is but one trouble
with the Republicans. They have but one regret. Editor Grubb, of
Darien, outlined the situation very aptly when he said that the only
thing that the Republicans desired, was the opportunity to steal a
State. They are perfectly willing to see Harrison defeated; they are
perfectly willing to retire from the control of the government; the
only bitterness they feel is the realization of the fact that they
failed to steal a State. They stole three Southern States in 1876.
They stole two Northern States in 1890, and they stole a Western State
last year, but they have failed to steal a single one in 1892. It
is no wonder they are going about talking wildly and rolling their
eyes. These are the symptoms of paresis, and, under the circumstances,
Senator McCullagh ought to forgive them. The grief and disappointment
of the Republican leaders are natural; a general election, and not a
State stolen! Surely, their hands have lost their cunning. They made a
tremendous effort to keep up their record. They tried to steal Delaware
and West Virginia and Connecticut, but everywhere the Democrats met
them and exposed their plans. The result was, that they failed to steal
even one State. Under the circumstances, we think editor McCullagh
should treat his brethren gently; he should not make satellite
allusions to their troubles. Let them gibber.”
Thank God, with our Australian Ballot system, each free-born
American citizen carries with him into the voter’s booth, if he
be at all sensitive, and clothed with an enlightened conscience,
the same awful sense of responsibility with which the enlightened
and tender-conscienced Catholic enters the sacred realm of the
confessional-box. Tremendous issues are at stake. He feels their force,
and arises to the occasion, as he ever has done when the exercise of
worth, virtue, or virility has been required upon his part, and of the
great mass of the common people, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Abraham
Lincoln, furnish fair samples of the people’s worth, virtue, and
virility.
The Buffalo _Commercial_, than which there is no paper in the State of
New York in possession of more perspicacity and political common-sense,
in speaking of Senator Allison, a Republican leader of the Senate,
states that just before leaving for Europe he intimated that the
McKinley Bill was too strong a specific for the Republican party. “You
remember,” he said, “that epitaph on the tombstone of the young man who
died before his time: ‘I was well; medicine made me ill, and here I
lie.’”
The Illinois _State Journal_ remarks: “Until the post-mortem is held,
it is, perhaps, just as well not to be certain what it was that hit
the G. O. P. last Tuesday. It may have been the McKinley Bill, or the
Homestead matter, or the Lutheran business, or the naturalized vote,
or several other things, and then it may have been a complication of
all these diseases.” Thou wise physician, who would lose sight of the
most important evidence of the disease, the discontent of the people,
the artificial class distinction created by the sham aristocracy of
America, the diagnosis of the disease, called discontent, as made by
the press generally, is as faulty and erroneous as would be the opinion
of the quack who would call measles, smallpox. Every symptom of the
displeasure of the people at the prevalence of the crime of “caste” in
our country was evident; yet, apparently, the most learned failed to
discern it.
The Toledo _Bee_ says: “The Republican party is dead. The step backward
has been taken, and it was a step back that led the party over the
precipice of power into the depths of oblivion. The Democratic party
has relegated the boodlers, the spoilsmen, and the factional leaders to
the rear. What is there left for us to live for?”
Says the Louisville _Courier-Journal_: “The people will have none of
its high tariffs, and none of its Force Bills; but without its high
tariffs and its Force Bills, it is only an organized hunt for official
plunder. The people will not support it in its old course, and will not
believe its brittle promises of reform.”
“‘High tariff did it,’ said Mr. Harrison; but in taking satisfaction
for his defeat out of the Napoleonic McKinley, the President is less
than just to the magnetic Blaine; for, if high tariff caused the
explosion, despite the ‘reciprocity attachment,’ what might it not
have done without that little Pan-American vent-hole?” This from the
Philadelphia _Record_.
The President, had he combined the magnetism of Blaine, the Napoleonic
ability of McKinley,--yea, had he, in fact, borne the magical name of
Lincoln,--could not possibly have been re-elected, for the people were
opposed to the ideas of “caste,” fostered with such care by the members
of the Republican party, in whom, in some mystical manner, have become
concentrated the wealth and objectionable characteristics which tended
to make the Southern cavalier so unpopular in 1860. The people, in
their wrath, would have risen against any party so besmeared with the
slime of that noxious crime.
The Atlanta _Constitution_, of November 17th, claims that “the leaders
of the two great parties have had a good deal to say during the past
few months about ‘the campaign of education.’ In the main, this
phrase very correctly describes the work of both parties. Republican
speakers and journalists work night and day to convince the people
of the benefits of high Protection. On the other hand, the Democrats
are equally active in exposing the true inwardness of McKinleyism and
class legislation. This educational literature covered the country,
and the average voter got a clearer insight of the questions at issue
than he ever had before. One effort of this campaign of education was
to eliminate personalities; principles and measures were discussed,
and the candidates escaped the usual mudslinging. Another result is
seen in the sweeping and decisive nature of the vote. The revolution
was so complete that the defeated side realized the utter absurdity
of indulging in any bitter complaints, with the great mass of American
people arrayed against them. Our victory was so crushing, that it
absolutely restored something like good feeling; and we find Whitelaw
Reid and Chauncey Depew saying pleasant things to Mr. Cleveland at a
banquet, and speaking of their defeat in a humorous fashion. This would
not have been the case, had the election been close and only a bare
majority of electoral votes for the successful ticket. Altogether, the
country has good reason to be satisfied with its campaign of education.
It has purified our politics, wiped out sectional lines, and made our
people more thoroughly American than ever.”
And for the erasure of sectionalism, God be thanked! but that a man of
Mr. Clark Howell’s preëminent ability should have wandered around so
near to the object of his search, the cause of the Republican party’s
defeat, and not found it, is astonishing. In his own home, the State of
Georgia, the Empire State of the South, and as editor of the leading
paper in the State, that he should be so oblivious to the fact that
the election, by the votes of the people, was a protest upon the part
of the people against the assumption by the rich, that such a thing as
“caste” could be possible in America.
Georgia, of all the Southern States, is preëminently industrial.
Oglethorpe, when he first settled on the banks of the Savannah river,
was himself surrounded by the poor debtors of England. The Salzburgers,
who sought the shores of the uninhabited, uncivilized, new colony, were
poor, uncultured people. Georgia never possessed, as a colony or as a
State, the aristocratic tendencies of its neighbor, South Carolina. The
foremost men have ever been essentially of the people; her settlers
largely of the Democratic masses; the names preëminent in her history
are the names of industrial New England. So Democratic is and was the
State of Georgia, that her most eminent son, Alexander H. Stevens,
had to be weaned away reluctantly from the doctrine of which Abraham
Lincoln was the personification. Since the war, the State of Georgia
more readily adapted herself to the new condition created by the result
of the struggle. It was never a State of tremendous landed proprietors.
The influx of emigration from the crowded Northern States found readier
assimilation in the State of Georgia than in any other Southern
State. In that State, the negro sooner realized his responsibilities
as a citizen of the South, sooner became convinced that his best and
wisest course was to merge himself into the large class of toilers and
laborers in the commonwealth. That a man with the opportunity, ability,
and brilliancy of Clark Howell, should become so utterly befogged by
the mists arising from the marsh of old party cries and principles,
should fail to recognize that the tremendous majority accorded the
Democratic candidate, was but an exhibition of that spirit which has
pervaded the State of Georgia from its embryonic existence on the
Savannah river; that Mr. Howell should have forgotten the lesson taught
by the forefathers of the Georgians of to-day, that Democracy was one
of the essential elements to the happiness of the citizens, settlement,
colony, commonwealth, and State, is passing strange. The very negro,
upon becoming a Georgian and a citizen, became a Democrat, almost as
a matter resulting from the atmosphere he breathed. Georgia’s vast
majority for the Democratic nominee was not rolled up except by the
aid of the negro, who, in his heart of hearts, is a Democrat, and the
appeals of the Republican party to his gratitude, claiming that they
were the emancipators of his race, were as futile as was the waving of
the bloody shirt in the face of the veterans of the North. The negroes
of the State of Georgia joined with their fellow-laborers of the
Anglo-Saxon race, to give added weight to the opposition of the masses
against “caste” in our country.
The _Mail and Express_, in an editorial of November 9th, says:
“If Benjamin Harrison is defeated, the people of this country, by
their ballots yesterday, decided again to try the experiment of the
Democratic administration. It is most extraordinary and unusual for
the American people to seek a change in administration at a time of
unwonted prosperity; to render a verdict in favor of a change, while
the working masses are everywhere busily employed, while farmers are
reaping their richest harvests, factories running day and night, and
building extensions and our foreign trade growing with rapid strides,
all under the beneficent influences of Republican policy, wisely and
faithfully administered by a President whose conduct of affairs has
been conspicuously conservative, successful, acceptable, and clean.
If Grover Cleveland has been elected, a change in administration has
been ordered. What shall we get in return? We shall see! The triumph
of Democracy would mean a radical change in our economical policy. It
would mean the selection for Vice-President of a man whose political
record has stamped him as unsafe, untrustworthy, and conspicuously
unfit for the high office to which he has been called. An ardent
advocate of the unlimited issue of greenbacks and fraudulent silver;
a bitter opponent of National Banks, and the advocate of State Banks
issue; outspoken in his demand for the imposition of the abandoned
and inquisitorial income tax, Mr. Stevenson would, after the 4th of
March, occupy a place separated from the Executive head of this
Government by the frail tenure of a single life. In the Senate, the
highest legislative body in the land, over which Mr. Stevenson, as
Vice-President, would preside, a Senate which may possibly have a
Democratic majority, his influence in favor of economic and financial
heresies would be potential. Let the people bear in mind the peace,
the happiness, and the prosperity they now enjoy. When anxiety and
unrest come, as they speedily would, with the renewed agitation in
the next Congress, of an attack upon our protective tariff; when the
spindles of our mills are silent, the forges black with ashes, our
looms yellow with rust, and unemployed men clamor here as they are
clamoring to-day in the streets of London and Lancashire against the
reduction of wages, let them listen to the plausible excuses and
fine-spun prevarications of the Free Trade tariff reformers, who will
be responsible. And if, as Vice-President, he should do the evil he can
do by aiding the meddlers with our financial and taxation systems, the
honest money men of New York and New England, of Illinois and Indiana,
who voted for him because he was associated with their idolized free
trade candidate, would have only themselves to thank for the prospect
of disaster and panic they might face. They would then pay the penalty
of their reckless inconsideration. Protection for American homes, for
American workingmen and American farmers, an honest dollar for honest
men, and a policy of free trade extension by the beneficent influences
of reciprocity, may all suffer assaults in the four years to come,
but we can trust the sober, second judgment of the American people,
in the light of another but recent experience with the free trade and
fraudulent silver Democracy, to do again in 1896 what it did with that
party at the close of the first Cleveland experiment, and turn the
incompetents out.”
It _is_ most extraordinary and unusual for the American people to seek
a change in the administration at a time of unwonted prosperity, but
the inward agitation of soul at the thought of great wrongs committed
by a pretended beneficent party led to the revolution of ’92, in very
much the same manner as inward agitation on another subject brought
about that which placed Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential Chair. The
American workman is above the American dollar!
The New York _World_, in an editorial of November 16th, says: “The
_Iron Trade Review_ is putting the manufacturers up to a dodge in order
to make the people sorry that they voted for Mr. Cleveland. Its advice
is that the manufacturers reduce the wages of their workingmen ‘to
fortify themselves in advance in view of the increasing probabilities
of destructive foreign competition.’ Is this an indication of
the kindly feeling entertained by the Protectionists for their
workingmen? They have professed that their tax policy was maintained
for the purpose of increasing wages. They have been charged with
misrepresentation; and they are now advised by one of their organs to
prove that the charge is true, by making the wage-earners suffer in
order that revenue reform may become unpopular. Nothing could better
show the dishonesty of the Protection claim that the tariff exists for
the workingman. If that claim were true, the manufacturers would resist
every tendency toward downward wages, instead of pushing them down in
order to gain an advantage for themselves in a political controversy.
The wages of labor are regulated by the supply and demand of the labor
market, and the people who would cut down wages, not because they must,
but because they want to revenge themselves for a Democratic victory by
making the workingman suffer, are the people who have been insisting
that the McKinley law repealed the law of supply and demand, and that
they are the true and unselfish benefactors of the workingmen. Happily,
the next President is a Democrat.”
[Illustration: General JAMES B. WEAVER.
Presidential Candidate of the People’s Party, 1892.]
CHAPTER II.
THE ALLEGED GENERAL DISCONTENT.
The workmen of our country, it is true, want better times, cheaper
clothing, the doing away with trusts, and many other desirable changes;
but far more than this, they feel the need of the absolute crushing
out of the last vestige of “caste.” They at last realize that “caste”
is a crime; and the common people have, at heart, no sympathy with
criminals, and especially criminals of that class. The common people
stay at home, work hard, and very seldom have need to “go to Canada,”
or take a flying trip to Southern Europe. Their sins are mainly
those of passion. At their best, they are kindly disposed to their
fellows; but they are _human_. They feel a snub from their employer
or employer’s son as keenly as their honest, hard-working wives and
daughters feel the haughty stare and condescending patronage of Madame
Crœsus and her bejewelled daughters. Here we offer our readers some
explanations, given by the common, average American citizen, for the
defeat of the Republican party at the polls on November 5th. The
article is taken from the pages of the New York _Tribune_, November
21, 1892, the official organ of the Republican Vice-Presidential
candidate, and therefore entitled to more than ordinary consideration.
The article is headed “The General Discontent.”
It consists of talks with the people about the recent election in
New York State and Vermont. It is, largely, the observations of a
correspondent who has walked through the State, asking farmers and
workingmen why they voted for Cleveland. Let it not be forgotten that
Whitelaw Reid is the editor of this paper.
“The politician who attempts to explain defeat is ‘crying over
spilt milk.’ The newspaper which tells ‘how it was done’ is
‘whining.’ The writer of a political obituary has hardly an
enviable task. A defeated party is supposed to accept with
philosophical resignation the rejection of pet policies, and with
the calmness of the fatalist, tell itself that it ‘was to have
been.’ The reasons given for the result of the recent election
are as numerous as there are differences in the minds of the two
parties. Some say that the desire for free trade is the cause of
the Republican overthrow. Others, that the thing that did it is
the McKinley bill; others again, that the people want the ‘repeal
of the Bank Tax law’; but to him that looks beneath the surface,
there is ample evidence that the defeat of the Republican party is
not mainly due to the ‘unpopularity’ of its candidates, nor to the
love which the people are said to bear for Grover Cleveland; not
to the McKinley bill, nor to any ‘desire on the part of the people
for free trade;’ not because free silver is or is not wanted.
Not through the ‘superb generalship’ of the Democratic National
Committee was a victory gained, nor was the battle lost through
the ‘lamentable incompetency’ of the Republican leaders. The chief
cause of Republican defeat and Democratic victory is the modern
tendency toward socialism.
“This statement by no means implies that the socialistic
propaganda has taken a firm hold upon the citizen of the United
States, or that its tenets have but to be sowed in American soil
to bear an abundant harvest. The people have not subscribed to
the mild doctrines of Henry George, nor to the more radical and
incendiary plans of John Burns, nor do they place confidence
in the ability or stability of the leaders of the ‘New Order
of Things.’ They have not the slightest desire to overturn
existing government; the ravings of the Anarchists they repudiate
altogether.
“But since 1873, on Black Friday, political and social conditions
in the United States have been those of unquiet and discontent
among certain thousands. The Greenback party then had its origin.
It is within the last decade, however, that social discontent has
manifested itself more markedly in the formation of political
parties, all of which, according to the leaders of them, were
destined to glorious futures, when the Democratic and Republican
parties should be wiped out of existence.
“This unsettled state of affairs showed itself in the formation of
the Greenback party, the Labor party, the Socialistic party, the
Farmers’ Alliance, and, finally in the People’s party.
THE RISE OF THE PEOPLE’S PARTY.
“The true reason for the formation of the Alliance, or People’s
party, in the North, West, and South, is not difficult to find.
When the tide of immigration and settlement turned toward the
great wheat and corn fields of Iowa, Nebraska, North and South
Dakota, every natural condition was favorable to the growing of
abundant crops, which brought the farmer a golden return for his
labor. But beginning with 1884 the crops in many sections of the
Northwest were failures. This unfavorable condition lasted until
1890, when a great demand for cereals from Europe, and enormous
crops harvested in America, turned the flood of prosperity back
again to the farmer, who had for six years suffered because of
poor crops. During these years of hard times the farmer had
encumbered himself with numerous and necessary debts, so that
the profits of the prosperous years of 1890 and 1891, as well as
those of this year, have gone in payment of accrued interest
and the liquidation, in part, of a vast mortgage indebtedness.
After having been obliged to stint himself for several years,
it is but natural that when a chance presented itself he should
desire to surfeit upon the plenty, rather than be obliged because
of his indebtedness to pay out the first money which had come to
him from several years of toil to those whom he owed. It is but
natural, too, under such conditions, that he should have embraced
a project which, as he understood it, was to lift the burden from
his shoulders and put it upon the back of the Government, to make
money ‘easy,’ and to render indebtedness not a hardship, but
rather something which might be wiped out as easily as it could be
incurred.
THE DISCONTENT IN THE EAST.
“The result in Wisconsin shows clearly that the wounds received
in the battle over the Bennet law had not yet healed, and the
agitation over the repeal of the Edwards law is the cause of
Republican disaster in Illinois; but no such issues as perverted
the minds of Republicans in the Northwest, and in Wisconsin and
Illinois, were matters of controversy in the old line Republican
States of Ohio and New Hampshire.
“The political veteran who has battled in these States for many
campaigns is puzzled where to seek the cause of such overwhelming
disaster. To cry ‘boodle’ is to bring ridicule upon the party, but
to give the McKinley bill as the only or main cause is to show
only a superficial knowledge of the existing condition of affairs.
“To find out why the people voted as they did, one must ask
them. It is they that have piled up these great majorities, and,
seemingly, have repudiated Republican doctrines, and put the seal
of disapproval upon what the Republican party believes has given
this country unexampled prosperity. Let any man who believes
that the ‘popularity’ of Grover Cleveland, the demand for free
trade, or any policy which is shown in the Democratic platform,
other than that which embodies the general statement that the
Democrats will give the country better times, is the cause of
Republican defeat, ask the people why they voted as they did, and
he will find that it is this tendency, unconscious and entirely
undeveloped, toward socialism which has given the Democrats
victory. It is not permanent nor lasting, so far as it exists in
seeming antagonism to Republican policies. In 1896 a cyclone of
disapproving votes is just as likely to sweep over the Democratic
camp as it has this year devastated the Republican stronghold.
“But it is one thing to make a statement, and another to prove
it. In order to ascertain what it was that brought defeat to the
Republican party, I took a trip through the States of New York and
Vermont, and in five days interviewed several hundred laboring
people and men who are in business in a small way in various
mercantile pursuits, and who voice the opinion and sentiments of
thousands in similar walks of life. Talk with many was profitless.
They had nothing against President Harrison, nothing in particular
that they knew of against Protection. They did not vote the
Democratic ticket because they were impressed with the greatness
of Mr. Cleveland, or with the soundness of his views, or with the
policy of the party as presented in the Chicago platform. They
said they wanted better times and more money. They wanted cheaper
clothing, cheaper fuel, cheaper everything; but they wanted to
sell what they had to sell, whether it be labor or goods, at the
highest possible price. They did not, because they could not, deny
that the country as a whole had grown vastly prosperous under
Republican administrations.
“They were not sure that the McKinley bill or previous tariffs had
had anything to do with the hard times which they declared exist.
The laborer could not say but what the cost of store articles had
decreased largely in the last quarter of a century. In fact, many
of them could remember when articles of common consumption and
use cost much more than they do to-day; while the products of the
farmer and the stocks of the shopkeeper, so the farmer and the
tradesman were obliged to affirm, were sold not many years ago at
a lower price and with less profit than to-day.
“The farmers acknowledge that perhaps the elements may have had
something to do with poor crops, that the opening of the vast
farming territory of the Northwest, and the inexorable enforcement
of the law of supply and demand, may have had something of a
disastrous effect upon the farmers of the East. But these were not
looking for reasons. They did not want reasons. They did not wish
to consider causes. They did not think that they and their affairs
have anything to do with causes, effects, policies, or platforms.
All they know is that times are bad--with them. All they want
is better times. ‘Figures don’t prove anything,’ they say. ‘We
are hard up, and have been for years; we do not know what causes
hard times, nor do we care, if the future only brings prosperity.
The Republicans are in power, and have been since 1862, with the
exception of four years; therefore, if they have not given and
cannot give us better times, who can but the Democrats? We are
going to try them.’
“This is what a part of that vote which gave the Democratic
majority in New York thought. They would have voted just as
readily for Populist, Prohibition, or Socialist candidates
had they thought that any of these parties had the power to
better their condition. But this element was not large enough
alone to give Mr. Cleveland a majority in New York State. It
was the smaller tradesman, the farmer, and the laborer. These
are the ones, and such the element whose vote gave success to
the Democratic party, and in voting thus they had no intention
of rejecting any particular Republican, or of approving any
particular Democratic policy.
AN EXAMPLE OF POPULAR REASONING.
“A tailor who lives in a little town not far from Albany, and
whose entire stock in trade does not amount in value to the
cost of one bolt of goods owned by his more fashionable brother
who does business in Broadway, voted on November 8th his first
Democratic ticket. I asked him why he did so, after having voted
for four Republican candidates, and having all his life approved
the Republican policy of Protection. He said: ‘I voted for Mr.
Cleveland, not for anything Mr. Cleveland or the Democratic party
have done, but rather for what he and his party have said they
would do. Nor did I vote against Mr. Harrison because I do not
like him, nor against the Republican party because it has always
stood for Protection, but more with a view of making an experiment
than anything else. I do not believe that times are good with a
majority of people; I know they are not with me. This does not
seem to be the day for the man who is in business in a small way.
I don’t know anything about the condition of affairs in free-trade
England, but I know that here we have Standard Oil trusts, a sugar
trust, a rubber trust, and a trust in almost every line, and if a
small dealer attempts to compete with a large dealer, the weaker
man is crushed. The great clothing company, with its millions of
capital, undersells me, and I am compelled to meet its prices or
go out of business and get into something else.
“‘All the business of the country seems to be getting into
the hands of a few people and a few big corporations. I don’t
like such a state of affairs. I don’t want to be crushed out
of existence for attempting to compete with the millionaire
clothing dealer. In order to live and conduct my business I must
make a profit on my goods. I do not say that the tariff or that
any Republican legislation is responsible for this condition of
affairs. It may be that no legislation can eradicate the evil, but
legislation certainly can prohibit trusts.
“‘What I do know is that I, and such men as I am, cannot do
business in competition with these combinations of capital. What
I want is a living. In this I am not unreasonable; the world owes
me a living, but I am willing to work and work hard to get it. All
that I want is a fair chance. Maybe I made a mistake when I voted
the Democratic ticket. Perhaps Protection is just what we have
needed and yet need. Perhaps Free-Trade will make things better. I
don’t know how this is, but when I voted I was willing to run my
chances in order to find out. I am a Republican still, and if the
Democrats cannot make things better I shall try to take life as it
comes and do the best I can.’
“This is, in a measure, the reasoning of most of the smaller
tradesmen. They want better times; they want centralization
of capital done away with; they want trusts prohibited, and
combinations of all kinds destroyed. They want more money, money
more easily obtained, with a less rate of interest.
“The intelligent laborer is giving much thought to the condition
of himself and his fellows. He is as yet not enough of a student
to dive into theories, to analyze policies; nor is he able, at
the present, to plan for himself any legislation which shall
better his condition. A group of laborers, some of whom worked
on the railroad and some in the quarries, in Washington County,
acknowledged to me that they voted on the 8th of November, for
the first time, the Democratic ticket. I was not able, after
exhaustive questioning, to get from any one of them a reason
why he had voted as he had done. The answer one gave me is the
answer all gave: He wanted less hours of work, better pay,
cheaper necessities. A boss of one of the gangs of quarrymen,
a man who in his time had been a day laborer himself, a person
of good, hard common sense, an out-and-out Republican, told me
that, although the men under him had always before voted the
Republican ticket, so far as he knew, yet at this election they
had voted for Cleveland, more because they were dissatisfied with
their condition, to a certain extent, and the Republicans were in
power, and because the Democrats had repeatedly made the general
statement that their policies would bring good times, when the
laborer should work few hours for large pay, the necessities of
life be much cheaper than they are to-day, and the luxuries of the
rich taxed to support the general government.
“‘I tried to reason with them,’ said the boss; ‘but you might
as well have tried to reason with a drove of mules, they are so
stubborn. I told them they might better leave well enough alone;
that the country had never been so prosperous as it was to-day;
that wages were good, and that the cost of store articles had been
steadily decreasing for years, and had never been so low as they
were to-day. But no, they did not believe that; they did not want
to believe it; they said they were overworked; that they were not
getting good pay--although their wages have never been larger--and
they want, well, I don’t believe any one of them can tell what he
does want. They said the Republican party was in power and times
were not good, and if the Democrats were able to make good times,
why, they wanted them in power and would vote the Democratic
ticket.’
OBSERVATIONS OF ONE WHO VOTED THE REPUBLICAN TICKET.
“A shoemaker in the town of Granville, Washington County, a good
deal of a philosopher in his way, with plenty of good horse-sense
showing in his rugged face, a man whose language was refined,
and whose conversation showed him to be a reader as well as
a reasoner, gave me the best exposition of the causes of the
Republican defeat that I have yet heard anyone make. ‘I am a
Republican,’ said he; ‘I always have been and I always shall be. I
hoped the party would win, but yet when I talked with the people
around this place, and in other towns which I sometimes visit,
those people who do a great deal of thinking, and who vote as
their reason, wrong or right, tells them to vote, I was mightily
afraid the fight would go against us. I do not think very much
of Anarchistic ideas, or of the theories of the Socialist, nor
of the golden promises made by Weaver and the People’s party. No
human being can ever make a paradise out of this world, and at no
one time will everyone in it be satisfied and happy. This nation
of ours has grown so rapidly, and there are so many foreigners
here who have become citizens, and we print so many cheap and
silly books, that I am not surprised that the Republican party was
defeated. If a party of angels had made up the Government, the
result would have been just the same. The same causes that led to
Republican defeat in 1892 will overthrow the Democratic Government
in 1896. Ever since the Greenback party was started, and ever
since the Socialistic and the hundred other ’istic’ agitators have
been telling the people how they are abused, how they are robbed,
that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer, everything
has been in such an unsettled condition that I do not wonder at
the result of the election. It could not have been otherwise.
“‘I believe the Administration has been everything it should be;
that General Harrison has been a splendid President; that his
policy has been for the good of the people; but I don’t believe
that the best man that ever lived, if he had been a Republican
and in power, could have been elected to the Presidency of the
United States this year. Up in all this section of the country,
and throughout the State, for that matter, the man who had always
before voted the Republican ticket in an independent way cast a
Democratic ballot, more because he wanted to make an experiment
than anything else. It is funny how unreasonable people are. They
don’t sit down and calmly figure for themselves, but they jump
at conclusions, and because with some of us times are hard, they
don’t stop to think who or what is responsible. I was talking
with just such a man only the other day. He was hard up, so he
claimed, but I know he has been doing business here ever since I
can remember, and has always lived and looked and acted just about
the same as he does now. He keeps a store. As near as I could get
at it, he wanted to sell everything he had to sell at a good deal
better price than it is fetching now, but he wanted everybody else
to sell to him what stuff he wanted to buy a good deal cheaper
than what he is paying for it now. He would not listen to me when
I told him that that is what everybody else wants to do; to buy
everything cheap and sell everything dear; but I told him that if
people did not buy until they could get things at their own price,
or sell until they could sell things at their own figure, it would
take but a mighty little while for everybody to starve to death.
He said he was going to vote the Democratic ticket just to see
what would happen in the next four years.
“‘Many of the quarrymen bring their boots here to be mended. They
tell me they want more money and fewer work hours. They have not
much of an idea how they are going to get them, other than that
the Democrats have told them that if Cleveland was elected they
would get what they wanted and everybody would be happy.
“‘Therefore, they voted the Democratic ticket. But, I believe,’
continued the shoemaker, ‘that after all this election will turn
out mighty well for the Republican party. In the end, the new
way of voting is going to help us. Before this the boss or the
politician could take his men or his gang and vote them as he
wished. Now this is, to a certain extent, changed. The half-way
independent man who before was led to the polls and voted, goes
to the polls and votes for himself. Before this he was part of
the machine, gave election matters but little thought, and was
enthusiastic only because others were so. Now, he must either vote
blindly or he must think for himself, and in the end he is going
to think it out and is going to do the right thing. He will then
see that the Republican policy has been and is for his benefit;
that it has contributed more than any other one thing to make this
country great and prosperous, and the people happy and contented.’
“One of the head workmen in a Troy factory possesses similar
ideas. He is a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and says
that many of his acquaintances voted the Democratic ticket more
because they were uneasy and wanted something, they did not know
what, than because they had any particular liking for Cleveland
and the Democracy, or dislike for Harrison and the Republican
party. This opinion is held by many of the skilled workmen of
the factories in both Albany and Troy, and in the smaller towns
between New York and Plattsburg.
A FARMER’S REASONS FOR HIS VOTE.
“It was a more difficult matter to get any Republican farmer to
acknowledge that he voted the Democratic ticket. One was finally
found who admitted that he had.
“‘What were your reasons?’ I asked.
“‘Well, I don’t know as I can exactly tell you,’ he answered; ‘we
have not had a very easy time of it, we farmers, for the last
eight or ten years.’
“‘But don’t you think,’ said I, ‘that the opening of the farming
lands in the West has a great deal to do with the decrease of farm
values in the East?’
“‘Well, perhaps so,’ he replied. ‘It is hard for a man who is not
a political economist and who doesn’t make a business of keeping
track of such things to give any reason for the hard times, or to
choose between the reasons given by Democrats and Republicans.
So far as I know, the Republican party has always kept its
promises made to the farmers. Since the McKinley tariff we have
been getting better prices for our potatoes and other produce in
Northern New York, for before, we had not been able to compete
with Canada. Yet, we don’t make much of a living, even at this.
You say that statistics prove that this country, as a Nation, is
vastly more prosperous than any other, and that we are a good deal
richer than we were ten years ago; yet I am not any better off,
and most of the farmers around here are not any better off, and
I made up my mind that if, as the Democrats promise, a change of
Administration would make good times, why, I wanted a change; if
Free Trade will make things better, I want Free Trade; if State
banks will give us money, and more of it, I want State banks put
on equal terms with National banks. If these changes are brought
about, it may make things a good deal worse than they are now. At
any rate, I am willing to try it. If I find that the Democrats
have deceived me, in 1896 I shall vote the Republican ticket
again.’
“These interviews show the state of mind among people who are
enough in number to turn overwhelmingly a majority for either the
Republican or the Democratic party. In them is ample evidence
that the people whose votes defeated the Republican party are
not dissatisfied with Republican administration of affairs. They
do not charge that the McKinley bill, or that the financial
or any other Republican policy is responsible for hard times,
nor is there any testimony which can be taken as evidence that
the ‘unbounded popularity’ of Grover Cleveland or the (by the
Democrats so called) broad financial and economic policy of that
party, has brought about this sweeping victory. A talk with the
independent voter shows, first, that there exists among the
smaller tradesmen, among those whose votes turn the tide toward
victory or toward defeat, dissatisfaction because, as they claim,
they are unable to compete with combinations of capital; they want
decentralization of capital, and trusts prohibited by law and the
law enforced.
“A condition of affairs exists, the dissatisfied tradesman claims,
in which he cannot earn a living. The Republican party was in
power, and had been, with the exception of four years, for a
quarter of a century, and while it possibly may not be responsible
for trusts and for the centralization of wealth and capital, yet
the tradesmen says, ‘I cast my vote for Cleveland and Democracy to
make an experiment, the result of which I am willing to take the
consequences of.’
“The workingman was influenced to vote for Democracy more because
he had been repeatedly told that all rich men and manufacturers
are Republicans than for anything else. Capital, of late years,
has been denounced so severely, and strikes, the cause of many
of which are hard to determine, have of late been so frequent
(fortunately for the Democratic party, because by these strikes
Democratic speakers were able falsely to claim that they were
caused by the attempt of the rich Republicans to crush the
workingman, and because by the shortness of the campaign the
Republicans were unable effectively to disprove these Democratic
statements) that the Republican party, although its policy of
protection was approved by the labor union leaders, has been in a
measure handicapped.
“The independent farmer voted the Democratic ticket because the
prices of farm products are not up to the figure he thinks they
should be, and because the Democrats have told him that their
financial and economic policies, if carried out, will enhance the
value of his farm products, give him the markets of the world, and
greatly decrease the cost of the necessities of life, although he
cannot disprove that this state of affairs does not exist to-day,
almost wholly because of a protective tariff.
GREAT NUMBERS OF NEW CITIZENS.
“But there is another element, and one which always has and
always will contribute to Democratic success. Naturalization was
unusually large this year; the citizen of foreign birth is a power
in the land and the Democratic party was felicitously named. There
is something in the word ‘Democracy’ which appeals strongly to
the citizen of foreign birth. In this country ‘Democracy,’ as
applied to the Democratic party, signifies to them that have left
their homes in Europe, a party of the people in contradistinction
to plutocracy and to aristocracy, the party of wealth and the
party of people of noble birth. That this has weight with a
certain foreign element is conclusively shown in the statement
made by several foreign laborers in Washington County. Their
knowledge of things American is not sufficient for them to grasp
the import of the policies advocated by either party, and hence
it is that they vote for the party whose name means the most to
them. From a talk with many of them I am convinced that it is a
natural antagonism toward the party in power, a love for the word
‘Democracy’ that caused not a few newly made citizens to vote for
Mr. Cleveland. One of them told me that the Republican party was
made up of bankers, of great manufacturers, of men who had formed
combinations for the purpose of advancing the cost of necessities
of life--the party, in fact, to which every one who has money
belongs. In other words, that to be a Republican is to be a
capitalist, and to be a Democrat is to be a man of the people:
that by voting the Democratic ticket the power could be taken from
the capitalist and put into the hands of the people, and that the
people ruling the people would mean legislation which would give
the greatest good to the greatest number.
“A talk with the people shows further that the Republican party
is still very much in existence; that its defeat in this election
does not mean a rebuke for anything that it has ever done, nor
for any policy which it advocates, but it means that unless
the Democratic party makes good the promise which it has given
to bring about better times, it will meet with a defeat more
overwhelming than that which overturned and shattered Republican
hopes in 1892, and that the Democrats will not only lose the
States which have gone from the Republican ranks this year, but
that West Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana will
turn from their allegiance to Democracy, cast their vote either
for a third party, for fusion, or for the Republicans, and for
future years make what is now known as the Solid South nothing but
a mournful Democratic memory.”
Through the whole of these interviews, when attention is directed to
the subject, it becomes perfectly apparent that the thread of the story
is the people’s objection to the prevalence of social distinction among
them. It is half expressed in nearly every one of these interviews,
while they hesitate to put it in words; possibly because they highly
appreciate that as the motive that so powerfully moved them on November
the 8th. And then again, because of their hesitancy in expressing their
recognition, even, of the attempt on the part of those possessed of
greater wealth, to assume social superiority of those less fortunate.
CHAPTER III.
NOVEMBER 8, 1892.
November the 8th, 1892, will be noted, by the historian of the future,
as a date constituting a milestone to mark the road and journey of
struggling humanity. What July the 14th is to the French, July the 4th
is, and November the 8th will be, to the American people.
The surface of the waters of public opinion presented a peaceful
appearance at the dawning of that autumn day, but beneath the tranquil
surface there raged subterranean and powerful forces, moving the deep
waters of public sentiment. The much-discussed “general apathy” was the
silent, sullen wrath, dangerous in individuals as it is in the masses.
The silent fighter is tireless and terrible. The people had ceased to
be moved by oratorical effort, brass bands, and torchlight processions.
They had become surfeited with argument upon the subject of Protection.
The changes had been rung upon the effect of the passage of a Force
Bill, until the people had become as accustomed to the beating of the
flanges of the newspapers upon the rails of this somewhat attenuated
subject, as a slumbering passenger on a railway train. In fact, the
cessation of the clangor would have attracted more attention than the
continuation of the monotonous drumming.
The leading journal in the Force Bill camp had been that preëminently
vigorous newspaper, the New York _Sun_. Under the guidance of the
genius of the Hon. Charles A. Dana, the New York _Sun_ had seized the
most attractive, because the most novel, instrument of noise presented
in this campaign of education. It had blown such vigorous blasts, that
a large portion of newspaperdom, who regarded the opinions expressed
by Mr. Dana as apt to be eminently reasonable, had joined in the
chorus of the Force Bill farce, and created discordance and noise
enough to have nauseated the masses with weariness of the subject. The
pot-house politician, as well as his more exalted brother of the Fifth
Avenue palatial political headquarters, was abashed and confused, by
the fact that his efforts to arouse enthusiasm among the masses were
utterly fruitless. They neither agreed with him nor disagreed with him.
There was no room for argument. It was like the professional pugilist
descanting on the beauties of the bruiser’s art to a Whittier, Holmes,
or Longfellow; the subjects, upon which the politicians of all degrees
and kinds had exhausted themselves, were not interesting.
The issue before the people was sentimental. The detestation of the
prevalence and growth of a pretended and sham aristocracy, became the
important and all-absorbing theme within their hearts. They heard the
talk; they read the dissertations of learned editors, and while it was
all, doubtless, the product of powerful brains, it was not the most
important matter in the struggle to be decided that November morning,
between the masses and an assumption of “caste” in free America.
Mr. Thomas Dolan, at the Clover Club, in Philadelphia, in referring
to the result of the election, had at least the candor to admit the
cause of the Republican party’s defeat. Had he, and gentlemen of his
doubtless aristocratic tendencies, realized the impression that their
course of conduct was making upon the minds of the mass of the Common
People prior to that eventful day, November the 8th, and had they
taken warning by the signs of the times, had they believed less in the
Burchard theory of Blaine’s defeat in ’84, and more in the efficacy of
the impression, prejudicing the minds of the people against Mr. Blaine
and his party by that banquet,--which has been dubbed in political
parlance, “the Belshazzar feast,”--they might have been forewarned. But
those who have been, for the last thirty years, attempting to create
an artificial order to govern society, “caste,” have become so puffed
up by wealth, and blinded by the ever-narrowing view they are able
to obtain from their assumed exalted position, that they have lost
sight of every other consideration; becoming absorbed in their own one
overmastering emotion--love of money. Before this god of Mammon they
had performed such obsequious service, that they imagined the only
appeal necessary to make to the people, was the one so much paraded
by the Republican press, _i. e._, the advantage of Protection to the
pocket of the poor man. Upon this day, November 8th, which was to
decide, in no doubtful manner, the destiny of the nation with regard
to its social life, in the silence, communing only with their outraged
sense of the rights of man and the equality of all mankind, the voters
sought the confessional-like closets in the booths, established by
the introduction of the Australian system of voting. There was no
hurrah, no noise, no violence, but a tremendous outpouring of men,
filling every voting precinct in the land, creating a larger percentage
of voters who exercise their right of franchise than on any former
election ever held in America.
As the hours of the day passed, some of the keen observers and astute
party leaders began to realize that the existence of a general “feeling
of apathy” had been more apparent than real; else what was the meaning
of this outpouring of voters, who, silently and with determined, fixed
certainty of purpose, sought to exercise their right as citizens?
Even in those sections of the large cities where the wealthy reside,
and in the back country, where it is difficult for the voter, often,
to find the time, opportunity, and the means of getting to the polls
on election day, it was the same story. The nation had been aroused in
some magical and mysterious manner, which was beyond the expectation
and prognostication of the politicians and party leaders. The people
had taken the matter out of their hands. They had simply taken the ship
of State into their own keeping, and the professional politician had to
cling to the life-line in the wake thereof.
Wonderment seized these gentlemen of supposed miraculous political
perspicacity. They asked one another, by their silent and inquiring
glances: “What does this mean? Is our occupation, like Othello’s, gone?”
The people, regardless of their mistaken mouthing, like some massive
Percheron horse, had taken the bit; and, regardless of all attempts
at guidance, were exerting the strength which, when aroused, they
possess, contrary to the expectations of the learned gentlemen of the
political profession. When the sun went down, November 8, 1892, none
were less able to predict the result of this tremendous uprising of the
people than those who by their diplomacy had arrived at that position,
so enviable in the minds of petty politicians, Chairmen of various
Campaign Committees. Chairman Carter might have exclaimed, with the
drowning people at Johnstown, as he sank beneath the flood of indignant
“Common People,” “Whence comes this water?” Chairman Harrity might well
have been drunk and delirious, as the result of his own good fortune,
for as surprising to him as to Chairman Carter was the existence of
this slumbering volcano of indignation which had brought about the
overwhelming success of the candidate who represented, in the minds of
the people, the opposition to the growing aristocracy which had become
engrafted upon the Republican party. Chairman Harrity might well have
been dazed by the remarkable results of his own endeavors, had he not
realized that his efforts had been incidental to, and not the cause of,
the success of Cleveland.
It is not presumed to criticise the conduct of the campaign as managed
by the campaign committees of both sides. Their duties, without
doubt, were performed in a most masterly manner. The organizations
with which both committees worked with tireless energy to achieve
success for their respective sides, cannot fail to impress even a
very tyro in politics. It was, however, like two learned physicians,
disputing over the disease of a patient, and both being in error; each
applying established remedies that experience had taught him were
efficacious in the disease he had imagined it to be; both equally in
error because they had mistaken the complaint of the patient. To the
average politician of the present day, Tariff Reform and Protection
constitute the sum of all evils and diseases of the body politic.
Like Dr. Sangrado’s instruction to Gil Blas, they have only two
remedies: phlebotomy and plenty of hot water. And the astonishment
expressed by them at the possible existence of some other disease
and some other remedy, was productive of as much consternation as
that in the breast of Gil Blas, at the result of the treatment of his
patients at Valladolid. As the returns from the different States began
to arrive at the headquarters of the different committees; as the
result of the opinion of the people upon this momentous occasion (so
fraught with disappointment to the aristocratic believers in “caste”)
became apparent, surprise and astonishment were depicted upon every
countenance; while, mingled with unalloyed delight in the breasts of
the Democrats, and with mortification in the hearts of the Republicans,
the same surprise and astonishment existed. That Illinois, a State that
had sent over 200,000 men to fight under the Federal flag, and in which
such large sums of pension money had been annually distributed to the
disabled veterans for many years, should have been so unmindful and
heedless of the display of the time-honored and ensanguined garment,
the “Bloody Shirt,” and the howling of the Republican press about
Cleveland’s vetoes of pension bills, was simply outrageous to the minds
of the stupefied Republican leaders.
Could it be possible that their so often victorious shout of
sectionalism, and constant address to the pocketbook of the veteran,
had been relegated to the shadowy shelf of “innocuous desuetude”?
They looked aghast at the result of the counting of votes in Indiana.
That much-talked-of, recently-discovered Gas belt, in which had
sprung up innumerable manufactories, whose workshops were filled with
“Common People,” had failed to find an all-obscuring attraction in
the glittering gold that the magnates of wealth had held out to them
as an inducement to perpetuate the power of the rich and to increase
those privileges and class distinctions that they fondly hoped would
be accorded to them by the American people. Verily, like DeFarge, in
Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities,” the workman of the manufacturers in
Indiana had presumed to hurl the magical Louis piece back into the
carriages of the wealthy, rejecting with indignation the attempt to
bribe their honor, and their sense of the equality of man.
The negro of Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia, upon whom these
bondholders thought they had a mortgage, by their claimed procurement
of his emancipation, had, even in spite of his color, previous
condition, and gratitude, joined with his fellow-citizens, the “Common
People,” taking as the representative of those who had most benefited
him and his race, the immortal Abraham Lincoln, a man of the “Common
People”; and, by the negro’s vote, was added strength to the blow,
struck by the white Democracy of the Union, at this arrogant assumption
of that thing which the negro, along with the white man, had learned to
hate and resent--the assumption of “caste” upon the part of any set of
citizens in the United States of America.
The wool-grower of Ohio, the home of the popular McKinley, added sorrow
to the cup held to the lips of the would-be aristocrats. He no longer
felt bound to bow his head before the advantages held out by the party
of wealth. He preferred to take a little less for his wool, and a
little more respect for himself, his wife, and children in the social
world, where every landmark of equality was being washed away by the
tide of aristocratic tendencies. The bewildered Republican leaders
gazed with terror upon the transmogrified weapons with which they had
waged war. The sword of steel, when held by the hand clad in a golden
gauntlet, had become a weapon of straw. They murmured to one another:
“If these weapons have failed us, in what shall we seek safety?”
Consternation was in the council of the great of that party who, for
more than a quarter of a century, had controlled the legislation of
the Republic, and by whom was created, in the minds of the people,
the errors of social distinction and “caste” that have crept into the
country. The Republicans, assembled at their headquarters, became more
bewildered at each new piece of evidence of the disapprobation and
rejection of those doctrines, the understanding of which they deemed
such conclusive argument to the minds of the people. The oncoming storm
had no centre. It was blowing in all directions of the Union. Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, even manufacturing Pennsylvania, were sending a
horrible howling of destructive wind, which would sweep away all their
carefully-prepared barriers. At the Democratic headquarters, no less
was the degree of wonder stamped, though with joyous imprint, upon the
faces of the party leaders. Could it be possible that Illinois had cast
the majority of its vote for the leaders of the Democratic party, those
standard-bearers against whom so much had been said to prejudice the
mind of that great Soldier State, the home of Lincoln, the birthplace
of the Republican party and of the Grand Army of the Republic?
It was hard for the most hopeful to realize. Had the vaunted undoing
of the Democratic party in the State of Indiana, the increase of
the manufactures, and the personal popularity of a President, one
of Indiana’s chosen sons, been proved false and groundless? Had the
negroes in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia joined the Democratic
“Common People,” in spite of the promised covenant of their salvation,
The Force Bill, and added to the majorities in those Southern States?
Connecticut--much-protected Connecticut; could it be possible that she
would increase the few hundred majority accorded to the Democratic
candidate four years ago?
All seemed so utterly out of keeping with the fondest hopes and
expectations of the sagacious chieftains of Democracy, that incredulity
was stamped upon every countenance. It seemed to be utterly beyond the
comprehension of the wisest of the political world of both parties,
that, possibly, they had been treating an unknown and unappreciated
disease, the nature whereof they had failed to recognize. The result
was not compatible with any established theory of either party. The
people had evinced such utter disregard for all the old arguments and
well-tried remedies, that it dumbfounded the physicians who pretend to
minister to the wants of the nation. From such unsuspected quarters,
and in such ridiculous proportions, had come the disapproval of the
people, that all were at sea; some wrapping themselves in their own
glory, proclaiming, like Cock Robin, “I did it, with my little bow and
arrow;” others, seeking to shield themselves behind the transparent,
fragile shield of another’s fault: “He did it, his unpopularity;”
“Protection did it; it was his policy;” each trying to escape the
general stampede, occasioned by the long-suppressed indignation of
the people who objected, not so much to the economic doctrines of the
Republican party (not that they had become converted to the tenets
of the Democratic faith), but to that crime of “caste” which, with
its many ramifications in the whole mass of society, was causing them
unhappiness.
It is not well for the Democratic party to lay the flattering unction
to its soul, that the mass of the people had become converted to the
principles enunciated by that party in Chicago, at the Convention where
Mr. Cleveland was nominated. It would be as delusive and disappointing
to them, in some future election, as it has proved to the Republican
party upon the occasion of their late discomfiture. On the other hand,
the Republican party should be well convinced, by its downfall, that
the people will not endure the wrapping up, in silken garments, of the
progeny of the deformed and diseased state of European society, palming
the enshrouded babe off as an offspring of that land that lit the torch
of freedom for the world.
CHAPTER IV.
SOCIETY AS THE PEOPLE FOUND IT, NOVEMBER 8, 1892.
Society, as the people found it, on last election day, was certainly
not as attractive as that autocratic gentleman, the distinguished Ward
McAllister found it, and has helped to make it, as related by him in a
book which has been published with much flourish of trumpets, entitled
“Society as _I_ Have Found It.”
While the volume itself hardly rises to the dignity of a dime novel,
it still, doubtless, is a true statement and record of the doings and
pretensions of the very class of people who, by their presumption, have
aroused the silent and sullen indignation of America. The book referred
to, and its writer, Ward McAllister, of course, received a large share
of criticism and ridicule. The absurdities of the book impressed the
critics of the newspapers all over the land. It was made a butt for
the squibs, sarcasm, and ridicule of some man on every newspaper
throughout the country. Passages were selected from the book wherein
Mr. McAllister poses himself in the position of a first-class cook,
and where he recounts how he has been playing the millinery maid for
some lady of fashion. Of course, it struck every one as ridiculous that
any manly man who claimed to be an American should be impressed by the
criticism made upon the “cut of the tails of his dress-coat,” or to
pay any attention to the advice of “a well-dressed Englishman, well up
in all matters pertaining to society,” as to the peculiar fashion to
be adopted concerning a man’s hat; how he should wear his watch-chain,
etc. All such things were so extremely amusing and so utterly farcical
to the brainworkers attached to the newspapers, that they held up the
book and McAllister as objects to create merriment. That was the only
possible view that could be taken by them of anything so absurdly funny
as a man’s highest ambition, his idea of dignity, his aim in life being
so small as that evidenced in McAllister’s autobiography.
There was another side to that question. A creature like McAllister
is not a spontaneous or instantaneous creation of our great Republic.
There must have existed a congenial atmosphere in his “smart set” to
produce an exotic of such rare and unattractive perfume. Had it not
been perfectly apparent that Ward McAllister was not the only person
who imitated and aped foreign manners, and desired to create a social
distinction in America, the book would have been a roaring farce.
Had the people at large supposed that he was the single individual in
America who approved of and earnestly desired to create a collection
of idiots who should claim that “caste” could exist in our country,
then the people would have regarded him much in the manner they would a
buffoon on the stage of a theatre, or some idiot who, from a desire to
attract attention, paints his face sky-blue. But the very advertising
that this blooming flower of sham aristocracy received at the hands
of the newspapers--which was done by the newspaper men in a spirit of
levity, possessing, as they do, sufficient brains to find McAllister
and his subject utterly absurd, in conjunction with many other
well-advertised and extravagantly absurd assumptions on the part of the
wealthy, made a much deeper impression upon the minds of the “Common
People” than it was supposed that it would or could do. McAllister’s
“smart set” in this country--and his “smart set” is not confined to
New York City, but exists in some form or manner in every city, town,
village, and county in the Union--this McAllister-like “smart set” in
each little community, as well as in the large cities, has managed by
its arrogance and assumed superiority to arouse a spirit of resentment
among the “Common People” of the Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson
stamp, because the masses have seen an attempt to establish something
which would create an inequality between the citizens of the Republic.
It was a monstrous joke that the Knights of the Pencil saw in
McAllister and his “Society as I Have Found It,” and, like the
keen-witted men that they are, they proceeded to hurl the javelins of
their wit and sarcasm at this balloon of idiocy and impudence; but in
piercing the balloon, the nauseating odor arising from its explosion
pervaded the nostrils of the “Common People” with more than ordinary
unsavoriness.
In every little village and town, and even through the farming
sections, there is some would-be Ward McAllister and “smart set;”
some little circle who from some imagined cause or reason, in their
own conceit are a little better than the typical old settlers of our
country, who brought the Republic into existence. They try to impress,
and sometimes most insultingly, this supposed superiority upon the
minds of the “Common People.” In one little village it will be, for
example, the owner of some protected little factory, which, in the
wisdom of the legislators, has been protected to encourage and increase
the industries of our country. In the solicitude of the legislators for
the welfare of the people (acting honestly and in the best interests
of the country), they have created the possibility for this man, this
small manufacturer in the little village referred to, to accumulate
a few thousand dollars more than his fellow citizens of the little
village. The money has not been earned either by his sagacity, business
ability, superior education, nor his intrinsic merit as a commercial
genius. It is the result of accidents and the necessity that the
legislators honestly felt existed, to create manufactories in our own
country, to furnish the articles consumed by the people, rather than to
buy the same from England and other foreign countries, sending our gold
abroad out of the country in payment therefor.
The honesty of purpose and the wisdom of the action of the legislative
part of the Government, it is not the province of this book to
question. It is to record the result of the action upon the social
relations of the different members of that little community, or
village, in which the small factory was established, and the attendant
unhappiness arising from the accumulation of a disproportioned amount
of money in the hands of one of the citizens of the community. The
manufacturer, becoming prosperous, began to assume an air of social
superiority. He was enabled to take a trip every now and again to
some near-by city. He there saw his model McAllister. He returned to
his village with un-American affectations, aping the manner of his
model--the McAllister of his near-by city. He began to draw around
him (in much the same manner as McAllister describes the creation of
the “Patriarchs” of New York) those whom he deemed suitable for that
superior social position which he, modelling the machinery after the
manner of the city McAllister, deemed so desirable.
Before proceeding to describe the birth of this superior social
class, and the method of its organization, for which information we
are indebted to this Prince of Cooks and Coats--McAllister--it is
desirable to regard in a political way this local would-be aristocrat,
the manufacturer. He imagines that Protection, the tariff, by which he
has been enabled to amass the wealth, as the foundation upon which he
bases his claim to a more exalted position, socially, than his fellow
citizens, is entirely due to the doctrines of the Republican party.
He loses sight of the fact that the Republican party did not owe its
origin to Protection. The Abraham Lincoln Republican party did not owe
its victory and popularity in the hearts of the people to Protection.
There were other causes which operated powerfully in producing the
result of the election in 1860; but the manufacturer of that little
village, before mentioned, absorbed by the one idea that Protection
has been the one cause of his success, and that it was due to the
Republican party, becomes oblivious to the fact that the necessities of
the Government, during a war to preserve the Federal Union, became so
great that revenue had to be derived from some source, and that many of
the duties imposed upon foreign importations by the Republican party
had for their cause the stern necessity of the soldiers in the field,
fighting to preserve the Union; that the war was not a battle for
Protection. It had for its origin other and very different causes.
The war, which had been the outgrowth of the election of the candidate
of the Republican party, created expenses which the Republican
administration had to meet, and as a means to that end it became
necessary to increase the existing duty and to place new duties upon
imported manufactured articles. And by so doing they carried to a
successful termination the great struggle for the preservation of
the Union, to which the Republican party had pledged itself; which,
together with the inclination and desire of some of the prominent
members of the Republican party to increase the manufacturing
industries of the country, has brought about that Protection and tariff
by which he, the village manufacturer, has profited. He never stops
to consider whether the tariff was a means to the end so profoundly
desired, the preservation of the Union, a means of furnishing sinews
of war by which the stars were retained upon our flag. He regards the
tariff and Protection only in its personal aspect. The Republican
party, to him, means his benefactor, to whom he owes an eternal debt of
gratitude for enabling him to acquire that which, without Protection
and tariff, he never could have obtained in the open field of the
commercial battle wherein the world at large may contend. The position
held by great thinkers of the Abraham Lincoln period is utterly
unappreciated by him. That this tariff and Protection, which has been
such a boon to him, was not created for his especial benefit, never
suggests itself to his mind; that men of the Lincoln day and stamp
should have had in view only the preservation of the Union and creating
a fund to pay the expenses of those engaged to accomplish that end,
does not occur to the village manufacturer.
In fact, many of the Republican politicians have made too much of
the Protection doctrine and not enough of the cause that created it.
This village, protected, small manufacturer, communing with himself,
concludes that without Protection he could never have amassed that
wealth which he is endeavoring to make elevate him above the social
status of his fellow citizens. He acknowledges, possibly, to himself,
that without Protection he might still be struggling for existence upon
an equal plane with the “Common People,” above whose heads he hopes
to elevate himself socially. He regards only the Republican party of
to-day, utterly oblivious to the fact that he and men of the McAllister
and the “smart set” type have no just appreciation and no great
admiration for the father of the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, and
his doctrines, which are the doctrines and sentiments of the “Common
People.” He merely knows that Protection helped _him_, and he cares
nothing for what it was that brought about Protection and compelled the
Republican party to advocate a high tariff during the Civil War.
Hence, this village manufacturer, this would-be social leader, the
imitator of the city Ward McAllister, is a most ardent Republican. The
little set of satellites which he gathers round him, glad to imitate
the examples and opinions of one who has attained success and who is
a recognized leader of this social movement to create “Caste” in our
communities, become also ardent Republicans. In other words, it becomes
almost a mark of respectability (so called) in the little community
wherein resides the small protected manufacturer, to be a Republican.
The very word “Democrat” smacks so much of the “Common People.” A man
of intelligence, education, or wealth, who is a Democrat, becomes a
social anomaly in that little community. A few prominent men through
the land, who have become associated with the Democratic party, are
spoken of merely as the result of inherited opinions through a long
line of ancestry, similar to an inherited religion, or a motto on a
coat-of-arms. A man who believes in Democracy, in its broad sense,
is regarded in these little communities, when he is possessed of
education, intelligence, and money, as a kind of firebrand. His every
action is viewed with suspicion. So firmly has it become fixed in
the minds of this little set of satellites, who surround the local
manufacturing magnate, that “Republicanism” and “respectability” are
synonymous, that they find it utterly incompatible with reason and
refinement for a man to be respectable, according to their definition
of the term, and not at the same time be a Republican.
The “Common People” in these little communities, many of whom have been
Republicans with Abraham Lincoln, many of whom were veteran soldiers of
the Union, became more incensed by the impression created by this local
“smart set,” than convinced by argument, during the campaign of 1892.
Before proceeding to more fully dissect the sentiment created by this
kind of nonsense, and by its almost invariable association with the
Republican party throughout the land, we will return to the admirable,
unabashed Ward McAllister, and quote something from his text-book of
snobbery, as to the methods adopted in the creation of the “smart set”
in New York, which has furnished a model for similar creations through
the length and breadth of the land.
“As a child,” writes this scion of a race of nobles(?), “I had often
listened with great interest to my father’s account of his visit to
London, with Dominick Lynch, the greatest swell and beau that New
York had ever known. He would describe his going with this friend to
Almack’s, finding themselves in a brilliant assemblage of people,
knowing no one and no one deigning to notice them; Lynch, turning to my
father, exclaimed: ‘Well, my friend, geese, indeed, were we, to thrust
ourselves in here, where we are evidently not wanted.’ He had hardly
finished the sentence when the Duke of Wellington (to whom they had
brought letters, and who had sent them tickets to Almack’s) entered,
looked around, and seeing them, at once approached them, took each
by the arm and walked them twice up and down the room; then, pleading
an engagement, said ‘Good-night’ and left. Their countenances fell as
he rapidly left the room, but the door had barely closed on him when
all crowded around them, and in a few minutes they were presented to
everyone of note, and had a charming evening. He described to us how
Almack’s originated--all by the banding together of powerful women of
influence for the purpose of getting up these balls, and in this way
making them the greatest social events of London society.
“Remembering all this, I resolved, in 1872, to establish in New York an
American Almack’s, taking men instead of women, being careful to select
only the leading representative men of the city, who had the right to
create and lead society. I knew all would depend upon our making a
proper selection. I made up an Executive Committee of three gentlemen,
who daily met at my house, and we went to work in earnest to make a
list of those we should ask to join in the undertaking. One of this
committee, a very bright, clever man, hit upon the name of ‘Patriarchs’
for the Association, which was at once adopted, and then, after some
discussion, we limited the number of Patriarchs to twenty-five, and
that each Patriarch, for his subscription, should have the right of
inviting to each ball four ladies and five gentlemen, including himself
and family; that all distinguished strangers, up to fifty, should be
asked; and then established the rules governing the giving of these
balls--all of which, with some slight modifications, have been carried
out to the letter to this day. The following gentlemen were then asked
to become ‘Patriarchs,’ and at once joined the little band:
John Jacob Astor,
William Astor,
De Lancey Kane,
Ward McAllister,
George Henry Warren,
Eugene A. Livingston,
William Butler Duncan,
E. Templeton Snelling,
Lewis Colford Jones,
John W. Hamersley,
Benjamin S. Welles,
Frederick Sheldon,
Royal Phelps,
Edwin A. Post,
A. Gracie King,
Lewis M. Rutherford,
Robert G. Remsen,
Wm. C. Schermerhorn,
Francis R. Rives,
Maturin Livingston,
Alex. Van Rensselaer,
Walter Langdon,
F. G. D’Hauteville,
C. C. Goodhue,
William R. Travers.”
These proud patriots, constituting a tribunal upon whose decision a
man’s claim to social equality with any other citizen in New York must
rest, could find much in the conduct of their descendants to question
with regard to their title to social superiority. The ventilation
given to the Drayton-Borrowe-Millbank affair reflected no great credit
upon the great name Astor--the first on the list of the “Patriarchs.”
The asinine utterances of a descendant of another of the “Patriarchs,”
which is here given, gives little evidence of inherited wisdom or
common sense.
In the curious case recently tried in New York relative to the right of
a women’s association to erect a statue to a lady who, though counted
among the metropolitan “Four Hundred,” was possessed of much public
spirit and philanthropic energy, one of the witnesses--a member of
the same family--testified that her grandfather “never invited such
people as Horace Greeley” to his house. A correspondent of the New York
_World_ enquires:
“Is it possible that we have an aristocratic society in this
republican country of ours to which the great founder of the
_Tribune_ could not be admitted? Horace Greeley was born in New
Hampshire, the native State of Gen. John Stark, Levi Woodbury,
Daniel Webster, and a long line of soldiers, statesmen, and men
famous in literature. If it is a title to aristocracy to belong
to a family who were original settlers of the country, the
Hamiltons are comparatively a new people, the great founder of
the family being an emigrant from the West Indian island of Nevis
about the year 1770. The Schuylers derive their distinction from
Major-General Philip Schuyler, who was a distinguished officer of
the Revolution, but whose services could not compare with those of
that sterling old hero of Bennington--John Stark.
“Why, Mr. Editor, there are thousands of good Democratic citizens
who can trace back their descent to the Pilgrim Fathers, more than
a hundred years before Alexander Hamilton landed from the West
Indies. Is it not a relic of feudal times and barbarism to claim
distinction above our fellows and superiority of birth on account
of the deeds of an ancestor a hundred or more years ago?
“‘Honor and fame from no condition rise.
Act well your part; there all the honor lies.’”
[Illustration: JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER,
A MAGNATE OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY.]
Shades of the great dead of journalism, the Bennetts, Raymonds, and
others who have left the stamp of their genius upon newspaperdom in
America, look down and pity the inane idiot who gives utterance to
sentiments concerning Horace Greeley like those of the descendant of
one of the “Patriarchs!” And men who occupy positions in the world of
journalism, like Halstead, Cockerill, Clark Howell, how like you such
utterances?
Really, had Horace Greeley been alive and known of such an utterly
meaningless assertion, doubtless the old genius would have smiled;
but here is the query: Would it not have made a Democrat of every
female member of his family, who regarded him as the epitome of worth,
virtue, and merit? That a man like Horace Greeley, who had arrived at a
position so pre-eminent as to disregard the snarls of puppies, should
be amused at such a statement, would not be astonishing; but it would
be none the less disagreeable for the women of his family. A woman’s
life is essentially social.
This illustration, and it would be impossible to find a better, of
this nauseating attempt to establish “caste” in our country, will
demonstrate the assertion that attempted class distinction has not
been confined to the laboring man, the workman, or the poor man, but
has been attempted, and made obnoxious, in every degree of wealth,
learning, and position. The little country or village manufacturing
magnate, whose Republicanism is not the Republicanism of _principles_
nor the Republicanism advocated by Abraham Lincoln, has adopted
the scheme set forth by Ward McAllister as a successful one, to be
imitated in his little community, in establishing his own little “smart
set”--his own local “Patriarchs.” Proceeding upon that basis, he and
his little band of innovators have attempted an improvement upon the
social system of each little community, which has become associated
in the minds of the “Common People” of these little communities with
Republicanism; and, therefore, the Republican party, in November last,
was forced to bear the opprobrium that attached itself, in the minds of
the “Common People,” to the “smart set” in their little communities.
Never was a greater mistake made than in supposing that the influence
of this attempted social distinction shall only influence the laborers
and working classes of a community. In proportion as a man, by increase
of wealth and reputation, acquires in the work-a-day world a higher
position with regard to the influence that he wields in the business
or professional world, just so much more bitterly does he resent
the arrogance of the few, who, like the Patriarchs, would establish
a tribunal to try their fellow citizens concerning their social
positions, at which those outside of the charmed circle have no
opportunity to appear and offer proofs and evidence of their worth and
merit. The banker who finds that his wife has been neglected when the
invitations to the Patriarchs’ ball are distributed, feels as keenly
and resentfully the insult as does the longshoreman upon finding that
his wife has not been invited to the butchers’ ball.
Be honest with yourselves, and you will find, down in your hearts, a
very ocean of bitterness occasioned by some slight or insult inflicted
upon your family; and these are the things to which men do not give
words, but which are silently felt, and to change which men silently
voted.
American men bestow upon the women of their families a degree of
devotion and admiration greater than that given by foreigners generally
to their families. The Americans have exalted the women of our
land, irrespective of wealth or condition, to a position of so much
pre-eminence in our social affairs, that in that department of our
lives our women are permitted to have absolute sway and control.
A man who dawdles around society, permitting it to absorb his time and
attention, loses in a certain degree the respect of the large mass of
American men. He is considered rather effeminate. Our social lives are
controlled by the woman. Our opinions are moulded by her; hence, we
feel that, on subjects of a social nature, her judgment, opinions, and
thoughts are entitled to the greatest respect--in fact, controlling
largely our own. Hence the mighty influence of the women who had become
resentfully Democratic because of social snubs. One woman had not been
invited to the Patriarch’s ball; another to the railroad magnate’s
ball; another to the Standard Oil Company king’s entertainment; and,
so on, it runs all down through the different stages created by this
attempted crime of “caste,” leaving behind it a sting in the hearts of
each home as it passes, until it reaches the laborer and strikes him
and his with telling force and effect. The Fricks, Carnegies, Goulds,
Vanderbilts, Astors, become names as hateful to him as Tarquin’s ever
was to the Roman “Common People.”
[Illustration: WARD MacALLISTER.
Self-Appointed Leader of the “Four Hundred” of New York.
“A Prince of Cooks and Coats.”]
CHAPTER V.
SOME REASONS FOR WRATH.
Had the spurious article, “American aristocracy,” confined its
vaporings and exhibitions to secluded spots, it would have been
tolerated by the American people, exactly like many other “isms,”
shams, frauds, and delusions. Had the worshipers at the shrine of
“caste,” and supposed social superiority, reserved their devotions to
some secluded chapel, they might have worshiped in peace at the feet
of the tinseled god whom they adore--“caste.” The American people
tolerate almost any kind of “ism” for a time, provided the “ism” be
not paraded before them, and flaunted in their faces in an insulting
manner; but a determined people are the citizens of this nation, and
when once aroused to a sense of outrage, they throw to the winds all
consideration of law, danger, and consequence. The people of Chicago
heard the howling of the anarchists with patience and amusement,
Sunday after Sunday, along the lake front, but when the anarchists at
Haymarket hurled one bomb among the citizens of the Republic, the day
of anarchism was ended in Chicago. Innocent or guilty, the leaders of
the movement must be punished. And they were!
Had the sham aristocrats of America been contented to reserve their
exhibition of arrogance and presumption to those dervishes who
worshiped at their own shrine--“caste”--and not to the general public,
it is possible that their absurd “ism” might have been tolerated
in a good-natured way for some time longer. It had certainly the
advantage of anarchism, inasmuch as, when reserved to a few dervishes,
it was excessively amusing. But, unfortunately for the champions of
“caste,” their followers, possessing neither a great amount of brains
nor courage (and in these particulars, even the anarchists have an
advantage over the sham aristocrats), have absolutely delighted in
trifling with and imposing upon the good-nature of the public. In
little, mean, spiteful ways, they have exhibited a smallness of soul,
and an attempt, in a cowardly manner, to impose upon those who, poor
in pocket, or dependent in some way, were unable to resent it. Take
the evidence of the clerks, employés, servants, of the sham imitators
of English aristocracy, and, almost without an exception, you will
find their bosoms filled with resentment and hatred for that class;
born, not with any desire to possess the property of their employers,
nor from any socialistic tendency, but entirely the result of mean,
spiteful, scornful snubbing. They have been wounded in pride, for, God
knows! they are entitled, as free American citizens, to the possession
of self-respect and pride.
Do you ask, Madame, why it is so hard for you to secure and retain
servants? The reason is given above.
An explanation of the cause for the dearth of good domestic servants
was sought by a great New York daily newspaper. It opened its columns
and asked for communications explaining why a young woman preferred to
work in a shop ten or twelve hours a day, and receive therefor three
dollars a week, rather than accept a position as a domestic servant, in
your house, Madame, where she would have greater comfort in the way of
food and lodging, and receive more dollars.
Read the answers received by the _Recorder_, of New York. In almost
every instance, the writer of the communication would say that it
was not a matter of food, lodging, and dollars, but a matter of
self-respect. They were snubbed and sat upon when engaged in serving
the rich.
Go to any fashionable restaurant, or saloon, where the would-be swells
swill champagne. Ask the attendants their opinion of those who, with a
supercilious air, throw them a dollar to fee them for their services.
You will hear expressed, in reply to your question, opinions like this:
“I feel like knocking their heads off. I am ready to work. I don’t
want their money for nothing; but I am a _man_, and as good as they
are.”
The workman was content, nor did it interest him if the rich should
drive their Tally-hos. He had no desire to divide the money of the
purse-proud devotee of “caste”; but when, weary from his day of labor,
trudging along the road to his humble home, with tooting horn and
flourish of whip the Tally-ho sweeps by him, and he has to scurry out
of the road, he long remembers the derisive smile of the insolent,
purse-proud occupants of the coach, and he objects--not to the
coach--but to the manner and the smile of the occupants.
The heart of the shop-girl or the seamstress is not filled with envy
because the fine lady (?) of fashion possesses garments of silk and
laces; but the insolence and supercilious manner, when the fine lady
(?) brought in contact with her, fills her soul with a sense of injured
dignity. She knows she’s quite as good as a lady of fashion. Possibly
her father is not a protected, petty manufacturer; and she goes to
her home, resenting the assumed superiority in the manner of the fine
lady, and preaches to father, brother, and lover equality and broad
democracy. The fine ladies (?) of fashion have ever been most potential
causes for victories by the people. No orator so eloquent as the wife,
daughter, sister, or sweetheart; and her wrongs were resented November
8th.
[Illustration: “THE PUBLIC BE D----D!”]
The New York _World_, of November 20th, 1892, publishes an article in
connection with New York society, that, having received a place in that
great Democratic journal, because of its undoubted truth, is worthy of
a place in this volume. In speaking of the death of Mrs. Belmont, the
_World_ makes use of the occasion to express some remarkably forcible
facts with regard to New York society. It says:--
“In the social history of New York it will be a lasting
distinction to Mrs. Belmont that she was a conspicuous figure in
good society before good society had been vulgarized. I have no
quarrel with the society of to-day, which has merely followed the
law of its evolution. I merely insist that the New York society
of thirty years ago had all the good features of to-day, and was
conspicuously free from certain faults which are now conspicuously
prominent. The society which accepted the leadership of Mrs.
Belmont had birth, and breeding, and culture, ample means and
true refinement, and it had also that last test of a genuine
aristocracy, that it held its rank by unquestioned title. It had
so little fear of the security of its position that it freely
admitted strangers of equal social rank.
“_It was possible for a rich merchant to permit a clerk to visit
at his house_, and even scholars and educated people were not
considered detrimental. While it had the respect of ingenuous
youth for the older aristocracies of Europe, it did not abase
itself in comparison with them, and was incapable of servility
before them or before anything human. _It was singularly free from
scandals._”
Then, thirty years ago,--that is, at the time of Abraham Lincoln’s
great popularity, succeeding by two years the great uprising of the
Common People, the “mudsills,” of the North and West,--a wealthy
merchant of the North would receive his clerk, as a social equal, in
his house. Then times have changed, and manners with them, within
the last thirty years! The rich merchant of to-day has forgotten
the force of the argument which resulted in the election of Abraham
Lincoln,--“Americans enforce Equality.” Two years was not enough,
thirty years ago, to enable the rich merchant to forget that the first
man of the nation, the President of the Union, had been a laborer,
rail-splitter, clerk in a grocery store, and was, while chief of the
nation, still a man of the “Common People.” No, two years was not
enough to bring about forgetfulness of these facts; but _thirty-two_
years was.
Hence, the overturning of the aristocratic party (or that party to
which the aristocrats belong) cost what it might in dollars to the
“Common People.” It is not a new economic doctrine that they demand; it
is a new social system. While the assumed aristocracy of thirty years
ago may have had respect for the older aristocracies of Europe, it most
certainly did not abase itself, and was not as servile to them, as is
the sham aristocracy of to-day.
Quoting from the Koran of that high priest of the “smart set,”
McAllister, who utters the sentiments of the most exalted in the holy
of holies in swelldom:--
“It is well to be in with the nobs who are born to their position,
but the support of the swells is more advantageous--for society is
sustained and carried on by the swells, the nobs looking quietly
on and accepting the position, feeling that they are there by
divine right; but they do not make fashionable society, nor carry
it on.”
The “nobs,” then, of this temple of “caste,” feel that they occupy the
high places by “divine right.” The phrase, “divine right,” sounds queer
to Anglo-Saxon ears, to us, the descendants of a race who elevated
Charles Stuart to the scaffold as a result of a “divine right.” It
sounds strangely in the ears of a nation that furnished the example
of Liberty and Equality to the world, and which, when followed by the
Frenchmen, caused Louis XVI. to kiss the guillotine by reason of his
“divine right.”
The meaningless, senseless sentences in “Society as I Have Found It,”
would be entitled to not the slightest attention, were it not for the
fact that they give words to the sentiments of the “smart set,” who
have allied themselves--or rather stuck themselves on, as a piece
of mud on a marble column--to the Republican party, and, hence, in
the minds of equality-loving Americans, the Republican party became
besmirched by that mud.
Quoting further from the New York _World_, and believing that the
writer of the article knew whereof he wrote, the following is
inserted:--
“I am writing about a period now thirty years gone by, and,
consequently, beyond the personal knowledge of the great majority
of my readers. But New York society of to-day is known to all
readers of Sunday papers. They know it as an institution in which
the prevalence of gigantic fortunes has made its atmosphere
uncongenial for all who are not conspicuously rich. And while
the valid claims of birth and breeding and culture have thus
been crowded out at one gate of the social arena, the influences
which have forced an entry at the other end in company with the
mere millions, have all been vulgarizing influences. Society is
no longer certain that it is the genuine article. If it were,
it would not swagger so much, nor give so much thought to the
effect it produces on the outer world. It is insolent, but not
courageous; ostentatious, but not brilliant; it splurges, but does
not shine; no glimmer of intelligence relieves the dullness of its
boredom. It abases itself before the peerage of Great Britain, and
the taint of corrupt living is unpleasantly frequent on its gilded
exterior. Measured by the tests of a true aristocracy, it is below
the standard of thirty years ago.”
The readers of the papers, who are the people, know that society is
an institution, as organized to-day, created by gigantic fortunes,
which have been accumulated within the last thirty years, and, in
many instances, by men of low and vulgar instincts, of mean origin,
poor ability, who have become rich as the result of accident, and the
result of the necessities of the nation while engaged in the war for
the preservation of the Union. These very men, who had not the courage
nor patriotism of the commonest soldier who shouldered his musket at
Abraham Lincoln’s call, and vindicated on the field of battle the right
of the people, in a republic, to equality, and to the control of the
government by the majority, who are beneficiaries of Protection and
the exigencies of the nation, would assume a superiority over that
common soldier whose courage and patriotism led him to risk his life in
preserving the Union--for the fighting soldiers of “’61” were of the
“Common People.”
Society is not only no longer uncertain that it is a genuine article,
but it _knows_ it is a sham and a fraud, and seeks to make up by
impertinence, insolence, and arrogance what it lacks of the genuine
article. It _does_ swagger; it does produce an effect upon the outer
world, and that effect was evident by the overwhelming vote of the
people, who said to it and to its successors in office, November 8th,
last: “Thus far and no farther thou shalt go.” It abases itself in such
a disgusting manner before that peerage of Great Britain, as to cause
feelings of indignation and contempt to arise in the bosoms of the
descendants of those old Continental soldiers, who, more than a hundred
years ago, said to Great Britain and her aristocracy: “We have had
enough of you. This shall be a land of freedom, equality, and liberty;
though it should cost the last drop of blood in our veins.” And how
effectively they demonstrated their determination to produce such a
result, many a lord and lordling now mouldering in his grave, who
sought these shores to impose the yoke of “caste” upon the colonies,
could attest.
The tuft-hunting, and absolute courting of English titled adventurers,
by the inheritors of the wealth taken from the people, has filled with
disgust the breast of every manly and womanly citizen of this country.
The people are not Socialists. Mrs. Hammersley is entitled to all
that she inherited. Her right to it would be protected and defended
by every good citizen of the Union, and there are few, very few, who
are not good citizens, among the people. She may marry whomsoever she
will. It was her privilege to select (or be selected by) the Duke of
Marlborough, descendant of--not the over-honest, but original--soldier
of fortune. She had a perfect right to prefer the position as wife
of a divorced duke. She could take the money amassed in America and
refurnish Blenheim, for the benefit (after the death of her divorced
duke) of his first wife, who was still living, and will now be enabled
to enjoy the fruits produced by the waters of American dollars poured
upon the somewhat decayed and degenerate house of Churchill.
Mrs. Hammersley has the right to utilize the fortune of her deceased
American husband under the wise provisions of his will (clever American
he must have been!) as she chooses; but when she and her acquired (by
purchase or otherwise) title is flaunted in the faces of American men
and women, as something which entitles her to a more eminent position
than she possessed as an American woman, the “Common People” object.
Every time that the lady was spoken of, or written of, as “the American
Duchess,” as “Our Duchess,” it aroused resentment. We have no American
Duchess.
As an American wife, Mrs. Hammersley was a queen; as a duchess, by the
exertion of great pressure and influence, she gained the privilege of
kissing the hand of another, _called_ Queen, because of the accident of
birth.
Doubtless, Mrs. Hammersley was not responsible for being dubbed “the
American Duchess” by the newspapers; but men of the Ward McAllister
stamp, and the “smart set,” indicated so plainly the kind of desire
that seems to pervade the members of the sham aristocracy, to acquire
by some method, and at any price, a title, that it was pardonable
that the newspaper men assigned the peculiarly objectionable title of
“the American Duchess” to one of America’s daughters. The columns of
our papers, day by day mirroring, as they do, the prevalence of this
servile abasement of the dignity of the American woman in the “smart
set” seeking alliances with a degenerate and unworthy offspring of a
decayed and odoriferous aristocracy existing in Europe, have brought
the subject to the attention of the people all over the land.
What a relief it is to manly Americans to turn from a picture like that
presented by the coroneted “Duchess,” whose title and coronet have been
purchased by the wealth of a common American citizen, an account of
which is here printed, taken from the New York _World_ of November the
13th:--
“A fine old illustration of the Duke’s financial ability was
shown in the way he obtained a _dot_ of $500,000 with his wife.
He made the Duchess borrow this sum in England and, to secure it,
insure her life to that amount. She then returned with him to this
country and here confessed judgment to her London creditors for
the amount mentioned. They took the matter into the court, which
directed that the trustees set aside annually from the Duchess’
income $50,000 a year to pay the interest on the debt she had
incurred in England and the principal. This money the Duchess gave
to her husband. She also bought and gave him a house in London.”
And then to gaze with admiring glances upon that model of the American
wife and mother, the late Mrs. Benjamin Harrison. To read of her, in
the columns of a paper like the New York _Herald_, politically opposed
to the party represented by President Harrison, that this good woman,
Mrs. Harrison, representing that which is most queenly to the minds of
the “Common People” of America, “was a model wife and mother;” that
“during her husband’s early struggles she helped him in many ways, and
her wise counsel was often a great service to him.” “She reared and
educated her children thoroughly and sensibly, and made their home
always attractive to them. * * * * She was also a skillful housekeeper,
and few women were more adept in the art of domestic economy. * * *
To do good works was her delight, and she was for many years one of
the managers of the Indianapolis Orphan Asylum. * * * * At no time a
woman of fashion. * * * In all the honors that came to her husband, she
remained just the same consistent, helpful woman that she was the first
day they were married. * * * * The domestic life at the White House
has been something that all the world might be better for knowing of.
Mrs. Harrison was the queen and centre of it all.”
Of this good wife and mother, endeared to the hearts of the “Common
People,” by the possession of those same qualities and virtues that
make the helpmates of the poor and lowly so dear to them, was said,
in the editorial columns of the New York _Herald_, October 25th, the
following:--
“In this hour of his affliction, the sympathy of the entire nation
will go out to President Harrison and his household.
“The people of the country had only to learn of her worth to
recognize and appreciate in Mrs. Harrison the virtues and graces
of a noble womanhood. As mistress of the White House, she won the
affection of all, as she endeared herself to her home circle by
her qualities as wife and mother.
“Her brave and serene spirit through long suffering, and the
President’s tender devotion, have touched the heart of the
country. Her death will be mourned as the loss of a good, lovable
woman.”
[Illustration: MRS. BENJAMIN HARRISON.]
The sorrow occasioned by her death inspired even poets to place a
wreath woven by their art, upon her tomb. It is well for the country
that the President’s wife should have been one furnishing such a
noble example to the women of America, that of her could be written
what James Whitcomb Riley wrote of Mrs. Harrison:--
Now utter calm and rest,
Hands folded o’er the breast,
In peace the placidest,
All trials past,
All fever soothed; all pain
Annulled in heart and brain,
Never to vex again,
She sleeps at last.
She sleeps, but, oh, most dear
And best beloved of her,
Ye sleep not, nay, nor stir,
Save but to bow
The closer each to each,
With sobs and broken speech
That all in vain beseech
Her answer now.
And lo, we weep with you,
Our grief the wide world through,
Yet, with the faith she knew,
We see her still,
Even as here she stood,
All that was pure and good
And sweet in womanhood,
God’s will her will.
The sympathy of the whole nation went out to President Harrison when he
sustained the loss of that example of virtue and womanly excellence in
the death of his wife. It was so deep and strong, that had the “Common
People” not seen the party he represented through a glass clouded by
the smoke and soot of sham aristocracy, he would have been re-elected.
By that bedside, the people saw the chief of their nation with bowed
head, shedding tears for that lost love who had shared with him his
joys and sorrows, his hopes and disappointments, ambitions, and his
failures. No tenderer sympathy or kindlier feeling ever filled and
moved the hearts of the American people than that felt for that good
husband, good patriot, good citizen, Benjamin Harrison. He was bereft
of a helpmate who by his side had fought the battle of life, the early
struggles in Indianapolis when he was a young lawyer, hewing his way
through the forest of difficulties, which, like the forests of Africa
that surrounded Stanley, in American life present themselves before
the struggling, ambitious men of our land. And when, at last, bursting
through the maze and underbrush of obstacles, like Stanley, he came
upon the open plain of success, her voice had been first to join his
in a prayer of thanksgiving. The bowed head of the aged chieftain of
the nation, upon whom the heavy hand of sorrow had been laid, was an
object to occasion even the most partisan political opponent to pause
and shed one sympathetic tear. How full must his mind have been of the
recollection of the hours anxiously spent by this loving American wife
and mother, while he was exposed to hourly danger in defence of the
American Union. How each sad hour must have been recalled to him, and
how slight had been the recompense, accorded in the harvest of time to
the faithful heart that had beat in rhythmic accord with his.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN HARRISON.
President of the United States, 1889-93.]
The sympathy of the nation was deep, broad, and strong; and had
Benjamin Harrison represented anything else but what the people knew
was the aristocratic party, on the flood-tide of that sympathy he would
have been carried into office by an overwhelming majority. Let those
who would excuse their own errors and the errors of their _class_, let
the would-be astute politician and the abashed assumed barons ascribe
the defeat of the Republican party to the lack of personal magnetism
of their candidate, but the great heart of the people will feel that
that charge was as false as the claim of the “Four Hundred” to social
superiority.
Benjamin Harrison will long be remembered as an exemplary President,
if patriotism and the performance of those pledges made to the people
who elected him, entitle a President to remembrance. Great as we all
recognize the personal magnetism of that magnificent statesman, James
G. Blaine, to be, it could not have exerted the influence over the
minds of the masses that the death of Mrs. Harrison in the White House
did. Death robbed the President of the position of the First Man in
the Nation. He became at once the husband, the father, and the man;
and had the issue been alone to be decided by personal magnetism,
sympathy of the people, the outburst of approval and approbation would
have been in favor of Benjamin Harrison. But he and the party whom he
represents, justly or unjustly, had become accursed with the crime of
“caste” in our country. He was defeated by those who, to a man, bowed
their heads in sorrow with him, and shed tears of sympathy at his great
loss as a fellow-man and citizen, but could not give him their votes as
representing what to them became the party of sham, affected, foreign
aristocracy.
Another picture that rises simultaneously before the eyes of the masses
as representing those queens in America, to whom more ready homage
is paid than was ever accorded to a coronet or crown, is our Frances
Cleveland. Ours, because the “Common People” claim her, as only an
ordinary, sweet, lovely, modest American woman.
That picture made more votes for Grover Cleveland than any political
chicanery could have accomplished. With her baby in her arms, she
represents American womanhood, motherhood, and simplicity; that which
is best, purest, and dearest to the hearts of all of us, the “Common
People.” No higher place is it possible for woman to attain than that
she occupies with her babe on her bosom.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN QUEEN.]
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN DUCHESS.]
She had gone into the White House a young, guileless, average, common
American girl; she had represented, in the high position accorded to
her by the hearts of the people, the first lady of the land, with a
simplicity and dignity pleasing to every American woman from Maine
to Texas. She had welcomed the friends of her girlhood, before, as
wife of the President, she became the most prominent female figure
in the land, with the same cordiality that as Miss Frances Folsom
she had exhibited towards them. The unassuming air with which she
occupied her high position as sharer of the honors of the Chieftain
of a free people, endeared her to the hearts of the mass of us,
“Common People.” The farmer’s wife in Illinois, the mechanic’s wife
at Homestead, Pa., the banker’s wife at Philadelphia, the railroad
president’s wife in New York, felt a ray of sunshine warming that
spot in woman’s heart, which is the Holy of Holies with them, young
wifehood; and when Time, the great scene-shifter, had rearranged the
setting of the stage, and presented to us the picture of the young
mother, she became as interesting an object as the President himself.
She had given to America another American. She had set an example for
the women of our land which it would be well, my lady in your palace
on Fifth avenue, to follow. Do not leave the future generations,
who will rule the destinies of this nation, to be the offspring of
foreigners; forego your balls, receptions, entertainments, and your
trips to Europe; endure the inconvenience and annoyance of the nursery.
Let us have some American children born. The prattle of the baby’s
tongue will be sweeter music to your ear than the lisping flattery of
some foreign duke. You may have the honor of being a mother of some
future Jefferson, Jackson, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Lincoln, Garfield,
Cleveland.
God bless you, Frances Cleveland, for the example you have set!
Thoughts of you and sweet memories of the past, as dear even to the
poorest woman as to the Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India,
make Democrats of the hard-worked, poor old wife and mother in the
little farmhouse of Illinois and Indiana. There is no scene in Grover
Cleveland’s career to-day so embalmed in the hearts of the people as
that wherein he is described as refusing to talk politics with one of
the political satellites that ever hover round planets of the political
firmament, putting them aside that he might watch the tottering
footsteps of baby Ruth. It was just like any other man of the people,
and the people recognized, as they did in the life and acts of Abraham
Lincoln, that Grover Cleveland is one of us.
When some member of the “smart set,” who allies herself with the
effete nobility of Europe, gives to the world a sample of what a man
should be, as did the humble American wife, Nancy Lincoln, then the
“Common People” will forget their wrath at the absurd assumption of
the worshipers of the British peerage. Women like Martha Washington,
Nancy Lincoln, Carrie Harrison, and Frances Cleveland, will ever be
contrasted with those samples of the “smart set” who seek the society
of the snobs and swells of foreign nations. The wrath of the people
will ever be aroused at the arrogant assumption of snobbery and sham
aristocracy upon the part of the successful searchers after titles.
The saying, by the “smart set,” that the “Common People” have nothing
to do with them or their actions, or with how they dispose of their
wealth, is quite true; but the unwise exhibition of an attempt to
create class distinctions, can arouse such gusts of anger that that
wealth, which is held only by paying such taxes as the “Common People”
may decree (being, as they are, the majority), that much-prized wealth
may be swept away, as a handful of dust, before the storm of the
people’s anger.
The correspondent of the New York _World_ hastens to vindicate the
just censure written, from any suspicion of prejudice concerning New
York’s “Four Hundred”; but, in the attempt to vindicate, gives evidence
enough of the thought of the people with regard to the morals of any
“smart set” possessed of unlimited millions, totally idle, selfish, and
luxurious:--
“To vindicate my censures from any suspicion of prejudice, let me
hasten to add that the tone of New York’s ‘Four Hundred’ is better
than that of any corresponding set in the world. Comparisons are
not satisfactory, because the society of Paris is the society of
all France, and the society of London is the society of the whole
British Empire. Compared with these, the social aristocracy of
New York is merely a little clique. It is only just to say that
it has not yet reached the coarseness of that fast set in London,
which it aspires to imitate, and, if it lacks the refinement
which centuries of courtly teaching have given to even the most
unruly elements of French aristocracy, it also falls short of that
cynicism which ignores all moral influences. Perhaps the present
lowered tone of society may be only a passing malady. Perhaps
things may get better before they get worse. Who knows? We can
only say that unlimited millions, total idleness, and selfish
luxury, are conditions not usually conducive to the elevation of
morals.”
What the people meant by the exhibition of their wrath last November,
in the vote that they cast against what they deemed the party of the
“smart set,” was the creation only of pictures in future, so sweetly
pure as that with which the _World_ correspondent winds up the
article:--
[Illustration: JAY GOULD.
DIED DECEMBER, 1892, WORTH $70,000,000.]
“What a different social vista is presented to us when we turn
to look back on the long and peaceful life of _Emerson’s widow_,
who died last week at the ripe age of _ninety_. Although she made
no claim on the world’s regard, we catch pleasant glimpses of
her personality along the path of the great philosopher’s life,
like the sunshine showing through the leaves of the Concord elms.
Beside the simple dignity of a life like hers, how unsatisfactory
appears the career of an over-dressed, over-fed, over-rich woman
of fashion, worn out in the scramble and struggle to keep up with
the procession.”
The people desire, and have so expressed themselves, by the mighty
voice of the majority, a return to the simple, natural condition of
social life in America, wherein “caste” has no place, from which social
distinctions disappear; the simple, homely, every-day, virtuous life of
the mothers, wives, and daughters of those who made the Republic.
The “Common People” have recorded their protest against snobbery, sham
aristocracy, “smart sets,” Ward McAllister, and multi-millionaires, who
assume to be better, either by “divine right” or otherwise, than the
ordinary American citizen. They have taught, by the lesson preached
in the tremendous majorities for that party whom they deemed least
tainted with this repugnant crime, that wealth, arrogance, assumption,
and snobbery may have obtained an undue amount of influence,
disproportioned to its merit, but that, thank God, on election day,
every citizen of the Republic enjoys an equal right to the franchise,
and that, by the voice of the majority, he will create such laws as to
eradicate the insidious disease of “caste” from the wholesome body of
the nation.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARISTOCRATIC “CHAPPIE” _vs._ ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
As that satellite of McAllister, that scion of the line of
“Patriarchs,” parades Fifth Avenue, creating by his presence an
aristocratic atmosphere for the poor, Common People to enjoy, what a
picture he presents! How admirable and worthy of emulation!
How the mind naturally recalls specimens of the _genus_ Chappie when
the subject of the young male aristocrat recurs to us! This descendant
of a half-dozen fur traders, ferrymen, or land speculators, has become
elongated and attenuated by the non-exercise of the muscles of his
feet and legs in the long tramps that his forefathers used to take to
barter for the peltries of the untutored Indian, exchanging rum and bad
muskets therefor.
We will begin with Chappie’s lower extremities, because of the greater
importance of that part of his anatomy. The pimple which surmounts
his structure is hardly worthy to be called a head, and is the least
important part of his makeup. Around the thin shanks of his lower limbs
are imported striped trousers, in imitation of his English model; these
are turned up when it rains in London. His narrow, chicken-like bosom
is covered by a hand’s breadth of imported material. (There’s no heart
in his bosom, nor other organs worthy of naming within his whole body;
hence, a little cloth will cover his trunk.) From sloping shoulders
that would have done credit to a belle of the First Empire of France,
hangs, in badly wrinkled folds, the latest thing “from Poole’s, of
London, y’ know!” Rising from the apex formed by the slopes of his
shoulders is a thing through which he breathes, and which he calls a
neck; around which, to fence it from the cold blasts of heaven, he has
had built a structure which he calls a collar, modelled absolutely
after that of “our late lamented Prince Clarence.” Above that thing
he calls a neck is nothing; for that which in a human being would
represent a face, in this creature is but a simpering mask of idiocy,
arrogance, sensuality, intemperance, and licentiousness.
That thing he calls a face, with assured presumption and insulting
attitude, he thrusts before the gaze and upon the attention of the
daughters of the poor but honest workmen, whose children, not having
a fur trader for a grandfather, have to labor. This _thing_--this
“Chappie”--would assume the same privileges as one of the new nobility,
the creation of men like McAllister and the “Patriarchs,” as those
assumed by the curled and perfumed darlings of the court which
surrounded the licentious Louis XV. That which from fear he would not
dare to do or say among the “smart set,” he feels at liberty to do or
say when thrown among the children of the poor and defenceless on a
public street. It is nothing to him to insult the poor shop girl; he
would say, “That is one of the evidences that I am of the upper class.
It should be an honor to be spoken to by me.”
It was ever one of the idiosyncrasies of the upper classes, wherever
people have allowed them to exist, to insult innocence and outrage
honor. History teems with it, and “Chappie,” by tradition, thinks
that necessarily he must act it, to be of the “Prince’s set.”
“Chappie” thinks that the scandal of Cavendish Square was but a little
episode--nothing, in fact, because the children of the poor were the
only ones contaminated; for the brutes who led to these orgies in
Cavendish Square had already become decayed and rotten morally.
“Chappie” in his exalted position sees in every unprotected woman (and
he’ll make sure she’s unprotected) a victim upon whom to exercise
his wiles, and if, God help her! through weakness, love of dress,
finery, or pleasure, she allows herself to be led to lean upon his
honor, she’ll fall! For “Chappie’s” honor exists only as aristocracy in
America, that being a sham and a fraud, as is Chappie’s honor.
This outgrowth of accumulated wealth, this polluting toad in the pure
water of public life, never has and never will, nor can he, give one
atom of return to the Republic for the honor of living in it. He whose
life is spent in idleness, debauchery, and sensuality regards his
valet, coachman, cook, clerk, tailor, hatter, merchant, banker, as his
social inferior. And he is always attached, like a barnacle, to the
good Republican Ship built by Abraham Lincoln.
Is it a wonder that the people said, in November last: “We’ll burn the
ship rather than endure such barnacles?”
This thing, so amusingly written of by that most excellent comic paper,
_Life_, so ridiculed by _Puck_ and _Judge_, held up for derision by the
whole newspaper fraternity, is responsible for the loss of thousands of
votes to the Republican party. Indignant wives, sisters, and daughters
have returned with flaming cheeks to humble yet honest homes, and told
the story of the insults offered them on the streets of this and other
good cities in the Union by “Chappie” and those creatures of his kind;
and in their telling of the story have made more votes, more Common
People’s votes, than have been made by all the newspapers ever printed
in the interests of the Democratic party. Each tear that was shed upon
the bosom of the poor man by an honest working daughter became a nail
in the coffin of the Republican party. Justly or unjustly, such is the
case. The Grand Old Party had descended, in the People’s opinion, to
the level of enduring representation of it by such as “Chappie.” “How
have the mighty fallen!”
“Chappie,” with his vacant semblance of a head, with his trousers
carefully rolled up, with his insidious smile, insinuating manner,
his suggestive gestures, and ogling glances, has proven himself a
valuable assistant to Mr. Harrity, Chairman of the Democratic National
Committee. Steadily he has increased the waters of wrath in the
reservoir of the poor man’s heart, until, bursting all barriers, it
swept away “Chappie,” his “smart set,” and all, November 8, 1892.
“Chappie,” after his late and dainty breakfast and stroll down Fifth
Avenue (every city has its Fifth Avenue or something like it), enabling
the daughters of the poor to gaze upon his charming proportions;
delighting their fancy with the possibility in the shape of finery
that might be theirs would he only condescend to beckon to them; with
a few chosen spirits similar to himself--all of the “smart set,”
y’ know!--seeks that most discriminating and select of saloons,
Delmonico’s. (And every city has its Delmonico.) There, after tickling
his palate and tempting his satiated appetite with delicacies so rare
and difficult of procurement that the cost of each one of such dainties
would feed some poor man’s family for a fortnight; forgetting that
early grandfather, the fur trader, who considered pork a feast, leans
back in his chair and lisps in affected imitation of the English,
“Where shall we g-o, deah boys?”
Now let us draw the veil over where “Chappie” spends his evenings.
“Chappie’s” pleasures and “Chappie’s” unnatural amusements would cause
a blush of shame to redden the face of the humblest horny-handed son
of toil. “Chappie’s” exhausted nature has ceased to realize sensations
natural to _men_ and sons of God. “Chappie” is much poorer than his
progenitor, the old fur trader; for the old fur trader was rich in
all the natural inclinations and appetites created by a natural
and vigorous manhood. The old fur trader had no coat-of-arms; but,
“Chappie,” that old fur trader would blush at the decadence of his own
descendant! When the historian, “Chappie,” shall make up the records
of this great nation, that old fur trader, though he swindled the
Indians and debauched them with rum, had that which you, “Chappie,”
lack--manliness, courage, and character, even though the character was
of a peculiar kind.
You have no character, “Chappie.” The Common People have found you a
tumor, an excrescence upon the body politic. They have taken their
knife to amputate, from wholesome Americanism, a foreign infliction. Be
careful, “Chappie,” that the amputation does not include the severance
of that semblance of a head that you carry on your sloping shoulders.
Be warned in time; you and yours have wealth, luxury, influence, and
obedience upon the part of those you dominate. You have all that wealth
will buy--villas at Newport, yachts, palaces. You revel in banquets,
balls, and glittering assemblages. The poor man’s home is illuminated
alone by the light shed by honor. He who would steal or deprive him
of that one light, takes all from him that makes his life worth the
living. The poor man’s honor is the honor of his wife and children.
Your immoralities have increased, like appetite, by what they fed upon.
It is not after you, the deluge, but it is around you, the deluge. It
is in the air, because it is in the hearts of the Common People.
It is no exaggeration to say that the assumed license which young men
of the “Chappie” class exhibit in their lives, morals, and manners, has
done much to disgust the large mass of the people. The oft-repeated
expression, that “virtue and honesty in England is confined to the
great middle classes,” is reiterated by those of the “Chappie” class in
America as an excuse for their own misdemeanors. The flagrantly sinful
lives, filled with debauchery, which they lead, is an evidence, to
their poor intellects, of their being members of the sham aristocracy
with which America is cursed. The society of the kind composed of
“Chappies” is so objectionable to the decency and intelligence of the
Common People that its exclusiveness would be almost a virtue.
The Common People of respectability would never seek “Chappie’s”
society, and their hearts are filled with resentment at his
supercilious manner and ignoble intentions when seeking the society of
the Common People.
[Illustration: ABE, THE RAIL-SPLITTER.--The “Common People” Made Him
President.]
[Illustration: “Chappie” on Fifth Avenue.--The Worthless Product of
“Caste” and Sham Aristocracy.]
To some it will appear ridiculous to have devoted so much space in this
volume to such a nonentity. If we could confine the “nonentity,” like
an ape, in the Zoological Garden in Central Park, it is true so much
space would be wasted as he occupies in this volume. But, the fact is,
he is allowed to run at large, and in his peregrinations around
the country he creates a feeling of disgust among the Common People for
that political party to which he proudly asserts he belongs; claiming
it to be the “only respectable party.” Were he not, as a “sandwich
man,” a walking advertisement of the worst element that has become
attached, like an octopus, to the Republican party, “Chappie” would be
unworthy of the attentions he has here received.
But, in seeking for the true cause of the decisive and overwhelming
overthrow of Lincoln’s “Grand Old Party,” it is necessary to mix even
this worthless ingredient into the porridge of defeat with which the
leaders of the Republican party have been fed.
It is a relief to turn from the despicable object of “Chappie,” and
regard and compare in our minds with him the men who have “left
footprints on the sands of time” in the history of our nation.
What a contrast is presented when we shift “Chappie” from the scene of
our mental vision and bring forth the loved “Harry” Clay, the miller’s
boy. That barefoot boy, on a bony, ill-bred horse, with shaggy mane
and tail; holding a bag of corn in front of him, on his journey to the
mill for his widowed mother, is a more inspiring picture, decidedly,
than “Chappie” on his well-bred English cob whose coat is soft as fur
from constant currying, whose tail is cropped off _a la_ the fashion
for riding-horses in London. As “Chappie” sits on his little imported
English saddle, and daintily holds an imported English riding whip,
prepared for a ride, to give the “Common People” an exhibition of the
beauty, gallantry and horsemanship of the scion of sham aristocracy;
with all his glory, backed with all of his millions, “Chappie” does
not warm the hearts of the “Common People” like the picture of that
miller’s boy, Henry Clay, the great Commoner of Kentucky.
Daniel Webster, struggling as district school teacher in New England,
clothed in ill-fitting garments, would somehow furnish a better model
for the sculptor or painter who would make a statue or picture or a
head of him who was, indeed, a mighty man.
The music of the voice of grand old Daniel Webster, even though he did
not drawl in delightful imitation of the English, would give greater
delight to the “Common People,” plebeian as they are and unrefined,
than “Chappie’s” lispings.
There remains another figure, called to mind by the Common People
when they view “Chappie,” by reason of the vast difference between
the figure of “Chappie” and the “rail-splitter” of Illinois. The
long, uncouth, gangling, ungainly figure of a boy sprawled on his
back, lying on the floor of a humble log-cabin, seeking knowledge
in a well-thumbed book, by the light of a flickering fire, presents
something that speaks more eloquently to the hearts of the Common
People than “Chappie’s” gorgeous appearance and apparel; for they know
that the name of the lad before that fire was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, and that
from that uncouth figure, and by the aid of that difficultly-acquired
knowledge, resulted the production of that man who, as representative
of the Common People as their President, stood as the Rock of
Gibraltar when the fierce waves of fratricidal war swept over our
land; immovable, firm and unchangeable as that rock itself in the
determination that the Union should be preserved, and that the Stars
and Stripes should float over every inch of ground of the United States
of America. While others lost hope and many were downcast, groping for
support in the hour of gloom and peril to the national existence of our
country, that man, who was the outcome of the ungainly figure by the
fire, led the people of the nation as the pillar of fire of old led the
hosts of Israel.
While men like Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Webster and Lincoln present
types which, to the minds of the Common People of America, are best
and greatest, the picture of “Chappie,” in all of his splendid
apparel, peculiar pronunciation, abnormal immoralities, will sink
into insignificance beneath the flood of the people’s contempt and
disapproval; just as the party to which “Chappie” had allied himself
were swept away and submerged, November 8, 1892.
[Illustration: ANDREW CARNEGIE.
A “Self-Made” Man. A Multi-Millionaire. Made $20,000,000 in America;
Lives in Scotland.]
CHAPTER VII.
HON. JOHN BRISBEN WALKER, ON HOMESTEAD.
It is the good fortune of only a few to be possessed of the remarkable
genius and imbued with the spirit of prophecy to predict coming events
with the certainty and accuracy of the Hon. J. Brisben Walker, who,
in an article published in the _Cosmopolitan_ for September, 1892,
foretold, with wonderful force, the rock upon which the Republican bark
was drifting. It was not until the manuscript of this volume was almost
completed that attention was called to Mr. Walker’s article. To the
credit of journalists, and writers generally, be it said that no class
or profession are as willing to recognize the ability of their brothers
as are the members of that profession whose aim it is to foretell the
future, to weigh the evidence of public opinion, prognosticate as to
the result thereof, and record the events that transpire, either in
accordance with their prophecies or contrary thereto. To Mr. Walker be
accorded the honor of justly appreciating the suppressed indignation
of the people, and of sounding the warning note to the wealthy, prior
to November 8, 1892. To the writer of this volume little credit is due
for merely recording that which, since the result of the election is
known, is perfectly apparent. Had Mr. Walker looked into the future
and been blessed with prophetic vision, he could not have told, more
clearly than he has, the forces that were operating in September, and
which produced the results so surprising to many in November.
[Illustration: HENRY C. FRICK,
MANAGER CARNEGIE WORKS, HOMESTEAD, PA.]
While Mr. Walker has taken Homestead for his text, the application of
his article to the condition of the people of the Union generally is
so apparent that each man for himself may shift the scene and make
it applicable to his own little community. In every village, town,
city, or county in the Union, is some one man, or some set of men,
who arrogate to themselves a certain superiority resulting from the
accumulation of wealth in their hands; this accumulation, having arisen
from the inequality in the distribution of the increased wealth of
the nation, being in many cases purely accidental, and in others the
result of the phenomenal development of the resources of this country,
coupled with the wonderful spirit of invention shown in the land in
the last thirty years. Mr. Walker takes Carnegie and Frick as types of
the class to which the people object so strenuously. The building of a
church, or the founding of a library, is but a small price to pay, in
the opinion of the American people, for the right to assume privileges
detrimental to the growth and continuance of that doctrine so dear to
the hearts of the masses--the equality of man. Mr. Walker entitles his
article, “The Homestead Object Lesson,” and begins by saying:--
“An affair like that at Homestead educates the public mind
rapidly; more rapidly in a month than ten years of books and
pamphlets. In the face of death, men stop to think. What led to
this? What does it mean? What is the remedy? And when the daily
journal gives in one column the picture of Cluny Castle, or the
magnificent pile from which the Lyttons have gone out to admit
partner Phipps from the Homestead mills, and in another sketches
showing the dead and dying upon the banks of the Monongahela, the
contrast is so sharp that one draws a quick breath of discomfort,
and even the most conservative, whose manhood is stronger than his
love of dollars, admits that something is wrong.”
If a man in the walk of life of Mr. Walker shall “draw a quick breath
of discomfort” at the scene he pictures, because his “manhood is
stronger than his love of dollars,” how utterly obvious it ought to
have appeared, and should now appear, to those possessed of wealth,
that an appeal for the support of that class who, as American citizens,
not only possess an abundance of manhood, but, in addition thereto, are
sufferers by the wrongs or conditions written of by Mr. Walker, was and
is useless.
“Lovers of the Republic may well tremble at this exhibition, so
closely resembling the evil days when rich Romans surrounded
themselves by hired bands of fighting bullies. True, our
modern rich man does not parade the streets, surrounded by his
gladiators. He sits in a secret office, removed from danger,
and, in communication with the telegraph wires, orders his army
concentrated from many States by rapid transit, and moves it
unexpectedly upon his private foes. There is lacking that personal
courage which gave a half-way excuse to the Roman who, sword
in hand, shared the dangers of the fight. But the risk to the
Republic is all the greater from these modern methods. For, if a
man may hire 300 poor devils ready to shoot down their brothers in
misery, there is no reason why he may not hire 10,000.”
There are not a few of us who will recall the natural indignation
aroused in our bosoms while witnessing that noble impersonator of
_Virginius_, John B. McCullough; the idea of the degradation to
which we were drifting, by the possibility of the existence of an
aristocracy, whose hired bullies and parasitical clients acted as
panders to the worst passions of man. If it be possible to adopt the
old Roman method of hiring bullies and assassins, and maintaining paid
private armies, how very possible to come to a condition similar to
that so powerfully portrayed in _Virginius_! Lovers of the Republic,
of honor, and virtue, may well tremble, at the bare possibility,
vaguely imagined, but evidently more vivid to the minds of the masses,
than was contemplated by those autocratic gentlemen who ordered their
mercenaries to Homestead.
“There is another side to this matter. Raised up under the system
which declares that any man has a right to control, without limit,
the earth’s surface and its productions, or the labor of his
fellow-men, Mr. Frick, doubtless, feels that he is performing a
sacred duty in protecting his property at Homestead, by any means
that the law permits. Thousands of good men held the same thought
regarding their slaves, before and during the war. It really
seemed to them a divine right of property, and all classes of the
community to-day--learned ministers and professors, intelligent
merchants, and high-minded men of all professions--hold that our
system of distribution is not only legal, but fair, and authorized
by the teachings of the Gospel.”
In the most lucid manner, Mr. Walker continues to give the causes of
the existence of conditions conducive to the results which have been
produced by the accumulation of wealth, and, in consequence, assumption
of a superior social position by the possessors thereof:--
“Less than half a century ago the people of the United States were
comparatively poor and the wealth of the country distributed with
a near approach to equality, less than a dozen individuals having
fortunes approaching the million mark. The laws had been made
for the existing conditions of labor, and were, as a whole, of a
satisfactory character. No one had yet dreamed of the marvelous
inventions and discoveries of natural wealth which were to upset
all the conditions of production, and make the succeeding fifty
years a wealth-giving period, unprecedented in the history of the
world. Anthracite and bituminous coals, petroleum, the cotton gin,
the reaper, steam and electricity, with their thousand marvels,
were suddenly emptied upon a community whose laws had been made
for conditions the very opposite of those now existing.
“It is not to be wondered at that the American mind should seize
upon the possibilities which old laws gave to individuals for
grabbing these newfound treasures. They would have been more than
human if they could have resisted the temptation, and besides,
it must be recollected that the Christianity practised was of a
perfunctory character, formal and nominal rather than real, and
civilization just beyond the period of wild beast skin wearing.
In fifty years the creation of wealth has become prodigious; the
distribution of wealth has become frightful in its inequalities.
The laws, which were beneficent for an agricultural and pastoral
people, worked degradation and infamy in a manufacturing
community. They permitted the few to grab the greater part of
this new wealth. With great fortunes are coming upon the scene
an unparalleled luxury upon the one hand, and a poverty upon the
other, scarcely surpassed in the days when production did not
equal one-tenth the present output. In the strife for wealth
the law-making power was found to be a useful auxiliary. Judges
were bought, senatorships were sold in the interests of railways
and the great corporations; and within the last ten years we
find wealth--not contented with the advantages which the laws,
confessedly in its favor, give it--hiring private armies to give
force to edicts allotting to the laborer a lesser share of the
product.”
Experience and observation force the conviction upon our minds, that
Mr. Walker is correct in his assumption that even the ministers believe
that the distribution of wealth among the masses is not only legal, but
fair, and authorized by the teachings of the Gospel. A little strange,
however, is it for the teachers of the doctrine of Christianity to
maintain principles so utterly at variance with those expressed by
their divine Master: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou
hast, and give to the poor.”
“There is only one class to dispute this proposition. They are the
toilers, whose labor is the immediate cause of the production of
our wealth. We may say that there must be intelligence to direct,
and that to the intelligence which takes advantage should come
the gains. But Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Frick are proofs that in
the ranks of labor itself there is intelligence to direct. Many
Carnegies and many Fricks would spring up to-morrow if opportunity
permitted. If one would study the justice of a system of political
economy, let him surrender his vested rights of property and take
his place among those whom the system crushes, whose labor it
devours, and whose reward for labor is a bare, joyless existence.
We who have the money can reason speciously regarding the justice
of our laws, the excellence of our system of government. The
laboring man can only groan in spirit. He has not hitherto had
the power of his vote, notwithstanding our boasted representative
government, because his brothers, in the agony which poverty
brings, in their effort to relieve the hand-to-mouth miseries of
their existence, have sold at each election this birthright for
the merest taste of pottage.”
Fortunately, under the Australian system of voting, it was
impracticable to buy Esau’s birthright with a delusive mess of pottage
held out by the protected, wealth-accumulating, sham aristocrats.
“Everyone knows that this has been true, that the labor vote has
never been a unit, that its purchasability has been one of the
well-understood factors in ward politics, that there has been
no combination, no united effort, no intelligent direction, no
willingness to submit to leadership, and that there is to-day no
probability of the vote of these people being cast at an early
election for the objects in which they are so deeply concerned.
The issues that are before the public in either of the great
political parties for whose candidates the votes will be cast,
are very largely those which concern the people of means and
influence. Platforms are dictated with reference to Wall street,
and the great corporations and the rich men who supply the sinews
of political war.”
Fortunately, Mr. Walker’s prophecy has proved incorrect. There was a
time in the very near future when the objects so sacred to them would
outweigh any possible advantage that might accrue to their pocketbooks
by voting with those who would impose the yoke of a class distinction
upon our country. It was nearer the day of retribution than even Mr.
Walker, farseeing as he has demonstrated himself to be, supposed.
The 8th of November was to witness the vindication upon the part of
the workman of his inherent right to exercise his prerogative as an
American citizen, uninfluenced by mercenary motives. Almost without
an error has Mr. Walker gauged the public feeling. It is pardonable,
in one who is so much nearer right than the majority, to make one
single error. None of us appreciated how full were the hearts of the
workingmen, the poor, and those oppressed by wealth and stung by an
attempted exhibition of the privileges accorded to “caste.”
“Nevertheless, there is a ground-current steadily moving
across the continent. Workmen, who were wholly ignorant thirty
years ago, are partly educated to-day. Within fifteen years,
a highly-intelligent class has sprung up among the workmen
themselves, and there are a few really able men who have been
making efforts for their advancement. That man Powderly, for
instance, is a statesman of a high order. He has capacity for
organization, he has singleness of purpose, he has determination,
and he has courage. And he is only one of a number. They have been
educating their followers, and teaching them to unite upon certain
simple propositions. It is like the fencing-master, who puts in
the hands of his pupil the single-stick, before he confides to
him the glittering rapier. There is talent enough among them to
organize a movement more formidable than that of Spartacus. Thank
God, they are men who love the Republic, and who hope for the
elevation of their people through the evolution of the law.”
Mr. Walker could have gone on and called the attention of the wealthy
to the fact that, while these men loved the Republic, they did not love
the foreign spirit that pervaded the would-be upper classes. It is well
that a man of Mr. Walker’s position should feel it incumbent upon him
to compliment, or, more properly speaking, to duly appreciate, a man
like Powderly. Mr. Powderly, were he not a statesman and a patriot,
is possessed of dangerous powers; were it not for the great amount of
virtue, honesty, and common-sense that resides in the bosoms of the
masses, some dangerous, daring, and magnetic leader might spring into
prominence and cause the overturning which Mr. Walker so ably depicts
later in his article. Mr. Powderly, and men of his kind, have ever
acted as the governing-power on this tremendous engine, called Labor,
in this country. They have exhibited a degree of conservatism and
consideration for the rights of the wealthy, as well as the rights of
the laborer, which entitles them to the respect of all sound-minded
Americans.
“Two things must always be borne in mind: First, that the laboring
men have the majority, if they choose to exercise it, not only of
votes, but of physical strength. Intelligence and cunning were,
once upon a time, factors upon which the few rich could count to
keep in subjection the many poor. The time is rapidly approaching
when these will no longer avail. There is a prevailing thought
that this must be a Republic, indeed, where all men shall be equal
before the law; where the law will carefully guard the industrious
man against the greedy man; where cunning will not place labor at
the greatest of disadvantages; where labor will become honorable,
and idleness contemptible; where effort will be expected from
every citizen in the direction of his best talent, and where
the needs of the unfortunate, through disease or inheritance,
will be respected; in a word, the model government in which a
near approach to the ideal Republic will be attained, an example
set which the countries of Europe may well imitate. We have the
opportunities here, with our rich territory, our great natural
resources, and our population yet uncrowded, to do this. If we
fail, the idea of a Republic may well be abandoned for the next
2,000 years.”
Forcefully is it called to the minds of the fortunate possessors of
wealth, by Mr. Walker, that the poor are in possession of a superior
physical force. It would be well for those who enjoy the protection
accorded to them and their property by this vast population, made up
largely of the laboring classes, to consider what a small percentage
the “wealthy” represent in the mass of 65,000,000 people. Their
pronounced minority becomes apparent whenever they oppose the will of
that great majority, the “Common People.” Should it ever be necessary
to arbitrate any question of difference by physical force, how
absolutely unequal are the contending elements! Men like Mr. Powderly
have ever sought to cast oil upon the turbulent waters occasioned
by too much arrogance upon the part of the wealthy. It is not only
equality before the law which the poor man prizes, but that equality
which is rather of a sentimental than a legal nature. He recognizes no
inequality as existing between the woman whom he honors as his wife
and the woman whom men like Messrs. Carnegie and Frick may clothe in
seal-skins and laces, and bedeck with jewels. It is not only before the
law that the poor man desires to be equal. The sentimental portion of
his nature is moved to create a difference, socially, resting only upon
those natural inherent qualities, worth, merit, and virtue, and not
that which has its foundation in the possession of wealth alone.
“That was a curious interview between the commandant of the
militia, the gentleman born and bred--with an inheritance of
belief regarding the rights to accumulate property, even if
in so doing one crowded one’s fellow-mortal to the wall--and
the iron-workers who constituted the Homestead committee.
Gold-spectacled, practised in the art of snubbing and sure of the
physical strength at his back, the officer was more than a match
for the laborer, who in his turn was awed by his inherited respect
for wealth and power. Chilled and overawed, the representatives of
labor went down the hill from this unequal interview. The general
in charge had neither the grace nor the will to recognize a labor
association which embraced a membership large enough, if properly
organized, to sweep out of existence the entire army of the United
States. They must have reflected, as they went down the hill,
these representatives of labor, that if a militia organization
carried such weight, permitted such freezing dignity upon the
part of a citizen towards other citizens, it might possibly be
well for their interests to have a few thousand of their own men
enrolled in this same militia. There is nothing to prevent a body
of American citizens from organizing themselves as a militia
organization with proper arms and equipments. There are enough
workmen in Pittsburg and vicinity to give a hundred regiments of
the full complement of ten companies of seventy men each, with as
many more left over for onlookers at parades. Six months of hard
drill such as the enthusiasm of these men would permit would leave
them equal to the best of the Philadelphia troops. Does anyone
believe for an instant that if there had been a hundred such
regiments among the workingmen of Pittsburg, General Snowden would
have declared that he could not recognize the existence of such a
body of men as the Amalgamated Association?”
We will assume, with Mr. Walker, that the commandant of the troops
sent to Pittsburg by the Governor of Pennsylvania, was a “gentleman
bred.” About a man being _born_ a gentleman, we may hold opinions at
variance with Mr. Walker. Horses may exhibit the fact that they are
thoroughbred, when intelligence in the shape of a jockey is perched
upon their backs; but born gentlemen in America have never, as a rule,
by their scintillating genius and danger-defying patriotism, carved out
names upon the eternal monuments of the nation to rival the names of
Clay, Webster, and Lincoln. We hope that the man put in command of the
Pennsylvania militia was a “gentleman bred,” but the exhibition that he
made of himself, while clothed with that brief authority, would not be
conducive to the formation of such an opinion.
In his meeting with the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
who were contributing towards the payment of the taxes from which the
expenses incurred by the State were to be defrayed, he did not conduct
himself in a manner such as to make a shining example for those who
shall command, in the future, the citizen-soldiery of the Republic. He
seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that he came, not as a conquering
hero, but as a private citizen, invested with a brief and circumscribed
authority exercised for the greatest good to the greatest number in
the prevention of lawlessness and violence and the peaceful solution
of a local difficulty with which the Sheriff of the county appeared
to be unable to contend. The arrogance assumed by this “gentleman
bred” was not calculated to create any great amount of good feeling
in the breasts of his fellow-citizens, to pacify whom he was sent
by the Governor of his State. There would have been but slight loss
of dignity upon his part to have allayed their anxiety by a little
exercise of that “good breeding,” patience, and consideration for the
feelings of others, which are supposed to be characteristics of the
gentleman the world over. General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the
armies of the nation, as victor in a contest of four years’ duration,
has set a magnificent example in the treatment of his vanquished but
great opponent, Lee, by his courteous, kindly, and magnanimous behavior
toward Lee and his vanquished legions whom Grant had so long faced and
at last vanquished.
“I choose to ask this question as a _reductio ad absurdum_, in
the hope that it will cause my own class, who have power and
authority, to stop and reflect that perhaps it will be best to
concede something in the way of law, to regulate this one-sided
distribution of wealth, lest it should be regulated through
bloodshed, or, what is more horrible still, should throw into
power, through sheer brute force, elements which will bring our
Republic to anarchy. If there could have been pointed out to the
nobles of Louis XVI. the things which were liable to follow their
arrogance, the children of these French rich would have cause for
congratulation to-day.”
Mr. Walker says that he chooses to ask this of men of his class. He
hardly means that. Men of his class, like himself, would have brains
enough not to require the question. Mr. Walker doubtless refers, in
speaking of men of his own class, to the wealthy, and to them it is
well addressed and worthy of their careful attention. France had its
14th of July, which should have taught Louis XVI. and his nobles the
lesson which it is hoped has been learned thoroughly by the rich of
this country, as taught in the result of the election of November 8,
1892. These are but the premonitory symptoms of a terrible scourge that
might sweep over our country. The poor may be robbed with impunity;
the “Common People” will good-naturedly submit to a lot of snubbing;
but it would be well for men accustomed to exhibit their impudence and
assumption, to forego the snubbing process when brought in contact
with the people, as General Snowden was, while commanding the military
power of the State, as he did at Homestead. General Snowden might well
be taken as a type of the “smart set” of Philadelphia, imitating the
manners of the McAllister “smart set” of New York.
“The fact is, we have two separate worlds in this country. The
man who lives in what is known as the world of society has no
conception of what the world of labor is thinking. Their worlds
are almost as distinct and as completely cut off from each other
as if one had its capital at Kamtchatka, and the other at Terra
del Fuego. The poor do injustice to the kindly-hearted people
whose minds have been warped by the teachings of inheritance
and by their environment of wealth; and the rich do not dream
of the thoughts which fill the minds of the poor. It is a
dangerous ignorance. These two factors are like the nitre and
charcoal of gunpowder. Any stray spark may produce disastrous
results. The laborer believes now that the law is gradually being
altered to suit what he considers the equities of his position.
Let him become fairly convinced that the government is for the
few, that the military is but a means of carrying out schemes
of aggrandizement by the rich, and that votes are bought or
majorities counted out in the same interest, and the crucial hour
of the Republic will at once have arrived.
“Can science do nothing towards the solution of these
difficulties? Statistics show us that if we were all to labor,
no one would want for anything, neither the necessities of life,
nor reasonable pleasures, nor enjoyments. Again, is there any
intelligent rich man, who would not wish his sons to labor? Who
does not believe that labor, in moderation, brings happiness, if
only that it gives a keener zest for recreation? Who does not
believe that idleness brings mental and physical injury? Who,
then, would wish for his children existence in a community where
idleness is to be their lot? Is there any thinking man who can
feel reasonably comfortable, when only a few blocks distant,
thousands are eking out a dark existence by labor that extends, in
many cases, over double the allotted number of hours, who have few
pleasures, and fewer still of what we call the comforts of life?”
It is not simply that those not possessed of wealth may live within
a few blocks of those who are possessed of wealth; it is not that
their lives may be eked out in darkness; it is the crushing shame to
them that their miserable existence is made still more hard to bear
by the flaunted superiority, socially, of the possessors of wealth,
who live a few blocks away. Poverty, when accompanied by none of the
other and more objectionable features, is not so hard to bear. The
poor man believes in the dignity of labor. He does not feel degraded
by the fact that he may toil with his hands. He only feels a sense of
shame, and his bosom only swells with wrath, when the disdainful dames
of the wealthy class presume to snub or insult his wife, the sharer of
his toil and privations. She is to him the light and life of even his
miserable hovel, only a few blocks away from the wealthy; hence, the
keener pang that he experiences when the one bright spot in his life,
sacred to him, is invaded by snobbery and pretended class distinction.
“Yet wise laws could regulate much of this in the brief period of
one generation. Lighten the burdens of taxation upon the poor,
by letting those whose wealth is protected by the State chiefly
furnish the means of subsistence for the State, at the same
time offering a discouragement to the amassing of great wealth.
The well-known expedient of income-tax would be a step in this
direction. Take out of the control of private individuals the
power to amass great fortunes, at the expense of the public,
through the management of functions like railway, express, and
telegraph, which are purely of a public character. Establish a
system of currency, self-regulated, by means of postal savings
banks; tax highly the unimproved properties which are held for
purposes of speculation. Finally, let it be a recognized principle
that when men employ many laborers, their business ceases to be
purely a private affair, but concerns the State, and that disputes
between proprietor and workmen must be submitted, not to the
brute-force of so many Pinkerton mercenaries, but to arbitration.”
The espousal, by Mr. Walker, of a doctrine which, to most of the
wealthy, is rank heresy,--an income tax,--is a step in the right
direction. A graduated tax, to be regulated by the amount of income
received and enjoyed by the taxpayer, would furnish a speedy,
practicable, and just means, not only of preventing these vast
accumulations in the hands of individuals, by accretions resulting from
that part of their income which they are unable to spend, but it would
also furnish a means whereby the Federal Government might be supported
without the imposition of even the existing internal revenue tax, and
only such protective tariff tax as would prove absolutely necessary to
sustain our manufactures. It was a great step in the right direction,
for the owner of such a prosperous magazine as the _Cosmopolitan_, the
possessor of much of the world’s goods, to propose such an expedient
for the relief of the people; especially when coupled with the
suggestion that corporations, like those of the railroads, telegraph,
_et al._, should not be controlled and managed for the profit of
individuals. We should have fewer strikes, and much less labor trouble,
if the Government controlled the great corporations who employ large
numbers of laboring men.
This article is given prominence and so liberally quoted from--not
alone from the intrinsic merit of the article and discernment of the
writer in predicting the overthrow of plutocracy, and warning the rich
against their insolence to those less-favored brothers, as far as
worldly wealth is concerned,--but also, because of the position of the
writer of the article; a man of brains, enterprise, energy, and wealth.
[Illustration: THE MISTAKE AT HOMESTEAD, PA.--JULY, 1892.]
CHAPTER VIII.
SURRENDER AT HOMESTEAD.--ORGANIZED LABOR DEFEATED.
It is fitting to follow the chapter composed so largely of what Mr.
Walker has written concerning the condition of affairs at Homestead,
with an account of the surrender. Carnegie, the owner of castles
and coaches in Scotland, the many times millionaire, and Frick, his
representative, living in luxury and attempted social superiority, have
vanquished the forces of organized labor. They have won the battle.
Some victories are more disastrous than defeats, and this victory, at
Homestead, of capital, wealth, sham aristocracy, against the people,
will teach the people to seek other methods by which their wrongs
may be righted. It will show them, coming as it does just after the
exhibition of the great power of the people, November 8, 1892, that
their plan of action must be changed; that the effective missile to
be used against the autocratic aristocrat is not the bullet, but the
missive called the “ballot.”
The plan of campaign of the poor “Common People” must be changed.
Their defeat at Homestead will be the precursor of a long line of
victories yet to be recorded. Organizations of _voters_ will spring
into existence, instead of Knights of Labor. The nation will give birth
(as it ever has, when necessity has demanded) to men of organizing
abilities. The Carnegies and Fricks will find the ballot of organized
voters more effective in preventing encroachment on the rights of the
people than the bullets of the strikers at Homestead hurled at the
hirelings of Pinkerton. As Mr. Walker so ably says, in a conflict of
physical force, the people--that is, the poor--are superior; when,
according to law, they deposit their ballots, they will enforce the
election of the chosen of the majority in spite of all the private
armies of the Carnegies and Fricks. And, should that occasion arise,
the militia and General Snowden will be found acting _with_ the people
in defending the rights of the people. There will be no insolence
and arrogance then upon the part of the commander of the militia;
for, after an election wherein the people have legally chosen their
representatives and legislators, not one militiaman would obey the
orders of the “well-bred” gentleman of Philadelphia, if such orders
were contrary to the will of the majority as expressed at a legal
election.
The representatives of the first grade of “caste” have won at
Homestead! In their “well-bred” bosoms, exultation may be the feeling
of the hour. Enjoy the brief respite in the fullness of selfishness;
but the hour is at hand when, according to the laws as enacted by
legally-elected representatives, the people of the Union shall fill
your “well-bred” bosoms with a sorrow and disappointment occasioned
by your arrogance, selfishness, and disregard of their claim for
respectful treatment upon your part of their representatives of
organized labor. When their representatives, as _organized voters_,
issue their mandates, no supercilious commander of militia, blessed
with a little brief authority, will dare resist them.
Organized labor is defeated at Homestead. Organized labor, organized
in heart and spirit, if not by an expressed Association, won a great
battle November last. The victory of the sham aristocracy at Homestead
was but a skirmish. The victory at the polls in November was a
Waterloo and Gettysburg rolled into one. The commander-in-chief of the
victorious army is Grover Cleveland. In his hands the people place the
power of their support--the great majority. He represents the choice
of the “Common People”--not because he’s a Democrat--not because the
people have become Democratic, in the narrow sense of the word, but
because Cleveland represents to their minds the opposition to sham
aristocracy, “caste.”
Grover Cleveland is an exponent of that sentiment that made Abraham
Lincoln President in ’61; Jackson, President in ’28; Jefferson,
President in 1800. Call the party by whom he was nominated any name
that best suits the fancy of the speaker. It’s the same grand old,
broad party of the people; triumphant now as it ever will be, God
grant, in this Republic! We want no Republic in America like that of
Venice. The people have entrusted Grover Cleveland with the executive
power of the nation. At his hands they will expect the righting of
those wrongs which these petty tyrants, sham aristocrats, believers in
social distinction and “caste,” have inflicted upon the people. They
have chosen representatives in Congress who control both branches of
the legislature, through whom the people shall express their will and
pleasure; and the people will expect of Grover Cleveland, as they did
of Abraham Lincoln, Jackson, and Jefferson, the execution of their
wishes. The people have never been disappointed by the actions of their
former chieftains in this matter. When made chief magistrate of the
nation, every former leader of the people has executed the will of the
masses, according to the laws as enacted. No former chief magistrate
has ever presumed to use his power of veto contrary to the will of the
people as expressed by a majority of their representatives.
The eyes of the nation are upon Grover Cleveland. In return for the
defeat in their skirmish at Homestead, the people will expect to
reap the fruits of their victory in the great battle of ballots last
November. Long have they suffered, and now that the golden opportunity
has arrived, the people are not to be thwarted. With kindly but
scrutinizing gaze, the people regard their new leader, Grover Cleveland.
The New York _Sun_, of November 20th, in an account of the defeat of
the Amalgamated Association, prints the following:--
“A prominent member of the Association was seen at his house
this afternoon. His grate was piled high with burning pamphlets.
Pointing to them, he said:
“‘I have no more use for them. They contain the laws and rules of
the Amalgamated Association, and I have taken this means to be rid
of them. I hardly think the Amalgamated lodges will be continued
here, as nothing can be derived from membership in it. A potent
fact in losing the strike was that too many of our men returned to
work, and this helped the company to get its mills into working
order. It was not the company, but our own men, that lost the
strike.’”
This prominent member of the Association, who was engaged in burning
the laws and rules of the Amalgamated Association, was inadvertently
acting in accordance with the unexpressed thought that the people had
found a surer means of righting their wrongs than that furnished by
associated labor. They had learned that their power, when opposed to
the rich and aristocratic, was better utilized in the exercise of the
ballot than when expressed through associated labor and associations
of crafts and certain kinds of labor. If the Carnegies and Fricks were
wise, they would view with fear and trembling the disruption of this
thing called organized labor, which has been a toy by which the people
have been amused and entertained and diverted from the use of their
most effective weapon, the ballot.
Organized labor and association have proved a pretty tin toy sword,
which was attractive to gaze at upon a holiday parade, but utterly
valueless in actual warfare. Its absolute inefficiency was never more
clearly demonstrated, because it had never been so thoroughly tested in
any previous contest of labor, as at Homestead.
Here is given concisely--as that most excellent journal, the New York
_Sun_, always presents all matters of public interest--an account
of the cost of the strike to the laborers, to the capitalist, and
to the State of Pennsylvania. Even the most careless reader and the
most superficial inquirer after truth will read in this statement the
evidence of the brave and valiant battle made by labor, which was
defeated because the very sword it fought with was not of the kind of
metal for actual warfare. The Ballot! the Ballot! the Ballot! is the
weapon of the future:--
“It is almost impossible to give figures at this time on the
cost of the strike, but conservative estimates place it at about
$10,000,000. Of this, about $2,500,000 were in wages to the men.
The firm’s loss is thought to be two or three times that. The
direct cost of the troops was nearly half a million. The indirect
loss has been very large indeed.
“This contest was brought on by a demand for a reduction of wages
of about 33-1/3 per cent. on certain classes of work in the open
hearth departments, Nos. 1 and 2 mills, and in the 119-inch and
32-inch plate mills. This reduction directly affected only about
325 out of the 3,800 men in the works, but the others took up the
matter as a common cause through sympathy, and agreed to stand by
the men interested in case of a strike.
“The scale expired under which they were working on June 30th.
The company wanted the Amalgamated Association, which controlled
the workmen in the mills, to sign the scale at the reduction. The
scale was to be renewed on January 1st, instead of July 1st. The
Association refused, and the men threatened to strike should the
request for the existing scale not be granted before July.
“On June 30th, the company locked out all men before they had the
opportunity to strike. The wages question was soon lost sight of,
and the contest for the recognition of organized labor followed.
On the dawn of July 6th, the famous battle took place between the
workmen on the mill property and the Pinkerton force attempting to
land and take possession of the mill.
“Then followed the trying times at Homestead, the reign of the
Advisory Board, the scenes of lawlessness, the calling out of
the troops, their long and trying stay, the shooting of Mr.
Frick by Berkman, the departure of the troops, the arrest of the
Homesteaders, the beginning of their trials, and now the ending of
the strike.
“According to Superintendent Wood, of the Homestead works, not
more than 800 or 900 of the total number of old employés will be
able to secure employment. Before the break of last Thursday,
there were left in Homestead about 2,800 of the original 3,800 men
who were locked out. Of these 2,800 men, 2,200 were mechanics and
laborers and 600 Amalgamated Association men.”
If Carnegie, Frick, son-in-law W. Seward Webb, of the New York Central
Road, and men of that class can find any comfort in this evidence that
the “Common People” have at last realized the utter lack of merit
in their weapons, called “Organizations and Associations of Labor,”
then most heartily are they to be congratulated. Let them enjoy for a
brief period their dreams of autocratic power; for there will be a sad
awakening as the result of the realization upon the part of the people
that the ballot-box is the place for effective battle, and not the
lodge rooms of Associations and Organizations.
Grover Cleveland is the Grand Master of the great Organization of the
Associated People, who legally will now enforce the demands of the
“Common People.”
The defeated laborer, mechanic, and workman of Homestead has a prospect
before him, so full of hope and promise, presenting a picture so
pleasing to his oppressed soul, that the scene of his disastrous defeat
becomes obliterated. Let him turn from those days of suffering, so
vividly portrayed by the _Herald_ of November 25th:--
“There were dozens of tables in Homestead to-day where the
Thanksgiving Day bird was absent, and on many of these tables
hunger was the only sauce in sight.
“To-day while plenty ruled in American homes, starvation and cold
were closing their grip on the families of the Homestead strikers.
While the horn of plenty unrolled its golden store into the hands
of the nation, there were children in Homestead crying for bread,
with weeping mothers and despairing fathers.
“While well-clothed citizens were going to highly respectable
churches to return thanks, there were people in Homestead
shivering over scant fires, wondering where the next meal would
come from. There were men with shoes so full of holes and clothes
so ragged as to barely cover them.
“The present sufferings of these men, women, and children were
made all the keener by their forebodings of the future; of a
winter without work, to be passed at the gates of starvation; with
no work to be had at the Carnegie mills or any other mills on
account of the terrible blacklist.”
The question will arise in the mind of the poor man, when recalling
HIS Thanksgiving dinner, With what did Andrew Carnegie and H. C. Frick
feed their families that day? With what kind of conscience did they bow
the knee and raise their voices in their costly churches and address
the throne of the lowly Jesus, who left in the records of His life,
utterances like these:--
“If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor.” “Sell that ye have, and give alms.”
The answer which will force itself upon the minds of the “Common
People” will not be such as to lessen or moderate the demands which
they will make for the fruits of their victory in November.
They have endured much; they have starved at Homestead; they have been
cold and hungry; they have been led astray by false gods; but the Land
of Canaan is now spread before them. The ballot-box has become their
guiding star and hope. The bitter experience endured that Thanksgiving
Day will prove a benefit to them in removing from them the danger of
relying upon the tin sword in future. Every line of this article in the
_Herald_ is full of danger to the insolent power of the rich, arrogant,
sham aristocrats. It is brimming over with a lesson that the blindest
is bound to read by the light of the recently-achieved victory of the
people:--
CANNOT LEAVE HOMESTEAD.
“Dozens there are who cannot leave Homestead or its vicinity. They
are under heavy bonds to appear in the Allegheny County courts on
charges of murder, treason, and riot. To stay means starvation,
because here they will find little or no work. To go means to be
sent to jail, because bondsmen are fearful and do not relish the
idea of forfeiting thousands of dollars.
“Most of the storekeepers in Homestead have ceased to give the
locked-out men credit. If they did, it would mean bankruptcy.
All of them are already creditors for hundreds and in some cases
thousands of dollars, with poor prospects of getting any of it
back for months, possibly years.
“The last strike benefits that will be paid by the Amalgamated
Association have been received by the idle men. Right here be it
said that these benefits were by no means as reported during the
strike. Not one-half of the men got $4 a week, and the majority
received about $2 a week.
“The Homestead steel-workers and their families are in need of
almost everything that goes to make life comfortable. All need
clothing more or less. One man I met to-day was trying to prevent
the biting wind from sweeping a well-ventilated straw hat from his
head.
“Then there is fuel. There is hardly a street or roadway in
Homestead on which there did not stand a house or several of
them in which the cold stoves made the temperature more frigid
by contrast. Those families that did burn coal or wood did so
through the kindness of the neighbors or the good-will of the fuel
merchant.
PLAYING THANKSGIVING.
“In walking through Homestead to-day I passed a vacant lot on
Fourth avenue, in which a fire was burning. The fuel consisted of
logs dragged from the river. Surrounding the fire were ill-clad
boys and girls. They were keeping warm and roasting potatoes. One
of the boys told me that ‘Maw hadn’t much for dinner at home, and
we are playing Thanksgiving.’
“This was their feast; they were children of the strikers, who
lived in a clump of shanties near by.”
Playing Thanksgiving! God of justice! look down upon such a picture.
Playing at praying! Absolutely making a game and jest of thanking Thee!
So cynical has become the hearts of even these children, caused by the
oppression and injustice of the oppressor, that they would make a game,
a jest, of giving thanks to the Giver of all good things! because the
good things were on the tables of Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others,
while they, somebody’s children--poor, “Common People’s” children,
perhaps--were cold, ragged, and hungry; making a feast of half-burned
potatoes, veritably, in a spirit of irony. So hard and desolate has
become the destiny of the poor of our land that the children cease to
be natural, loving, gentle, and sincere, and have become ironical,
sarcastic, holding so lightly the respect due to the God of all men,
that they make a jest of the day consecrated to rendering thanks to the
Giver of all good things of life!
A picture like this, for which the sham aristocrats are absolutely
responsible, does more to arouse a feelings of socialism and anarchism
in the breasts of even the best citizens, than all the ravings of
crazed nihilistic leaders. Stop such scenes now! Socialism and
anarchism have no foothold in America. Don’t allow these dangerous
“isms” to form an entering wedge. Such scenes as those poor children,
playing Thanksgiving, are the greatest allies of the socialists and
anarchists.
The gentleman (?) known as Ollie Teall should receive, at the hands
of the disciples of anarchy and socialism, a medal for his valuable
services in attempting to present a picture to the delectation of the
assembled “Four Hundred,” of the children of the poor feeding (as
animals, poor creatures!) in Madison Square Garden, last Christmas.
This man, Teall, may have no qualities to recommend him other than
this, that he is a superlative example of those who would create a
state of anarchy in this country.
It was his proposition, so it appears from the newspapers, to make
a kind of horse-show at Madison Square Garden, wherein the children
of the poor should perform the part of the horses, the animals. It
was proposed to sell boxes to the rich, that they might sit around
and behold the exhibition of the animals! To the originators of this
novel exhibition is due the thanks and praises of the anarchists, who
have sought a haven here, for they played into the hands held by the
anarchists with wonderful precision.
We must all respect the courage and manliness of one man who, justly
conceiving his duty as a teacher of the doctrine of his Master, arose
and protested. Yes, and he was worth more than a brigade of soldiers in
quieting the wrath of the people, the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of St. George
Episcopal church, in Brooklyn, and let his name be remembered for his
courage in denouncing the most damnable exhibition of the tendency of
the “Four Hundred” of New York. The name of the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, of
the St. George Episcopal Church, will ever be remembered by the poor as
that of a man, a Christian, an American, and a gentleman. Vigorous was
his denunciation of the spectacular exhibition of the feeding of the
poor like so many cattle.
Yes, fair “Four Hundred,” as the nobles of France told the peasants to
“eat grass” and were amused at their attempts of the performance, so
you would feed a lot of poor children in Madison Square Garden, and
take stalls and boxes to look on at the peculiar performances of the
hungry eating! You know that each child is but the coming American man
or woman. You would make a Roman holiday to exhibit the necessities
of the People, who are your rulers. Delightful entertainment for the
exclusive “Four Hundred,”--to sit around with their many millions and
gaze at the ravenous appetites exhibited by the children of the poor.
It was a holiday like the holidays in Rome, when the nobles assembled
to see the persecuted Christians torn and mangled by every form of
beast that, by research, could be brought to the Roman arena. Dr.
Rainsford, thou art “a man for a’ that.”
Do you wonder, millionaires, why the people whose children you would
exhibit to create a carnival for you, did not vote with you November
8, 1892? Of the purchasers of the boxes at Madison Square Garden for
this unique performance, ninety per cent. were Republicans. Shades
of Abraham Lincoln, look down and see the strong oak of thy creation
benumbed by this parasite entwined around it! Imagine the creator, the
originator, the father of the Republican party, this high priest in
the hearts of the “Common People,” Abraham Lincoln, at such a scene.
He would have been down with the children. In his loving arms he would
have held the children of the poor. And these “Four Hundred,” a little
better than the “Common People,” would look on at the feeding of the
“common folks,” and, from their assumed exalted position, view the
performance gotten up by their money, and would have had a sensation
of almost hunger aroused where abundance had produced satiety. The
proposition to hold such an exhibition as the feeding of the poor
children in Madison Square Garden was in itself an insult to every
American citizen. Imagine, fair lady, as you loll in your carriage
drawn by your high-priced bays on Fifth avenue, how pleasant it would
be to have your little curled and perfumed darling, left at home under
the watchful eye of some imported French _bonne_, exhibited as a freak
in a dime museum. Think of the tears that should be shed on a mother’s
bosom, being paraded before the public as an object of amusement. A
child’s sorrows and its joys are as sacred as the law of God delivered
to Moses on Sinai, for a child has more of God in it; and you would
make of the children of the poor, and their wants, and needs, and
appetites, a spectacle that you may pay so much money and see?
The lisped prayer of the child of the poor ascends to the throne of God
as surely, though it proceed from a hovel or the gutter, as that from
the downy couch of the ease of luxury in the palace on Fifth avenue. Do
not the poor love their children with the same earnestness and fervor
as the rich? Have you to learn this lesson anew? Need you wonder, you
people who seem astonished at the result of election, why the mighty
voice of the people should be raised against you? You who wonder why
the party of you, “the respectable,” should have been so overwhelmingly
defeated, recall to mind the contemplated carnival you would have
held in Madison Square Garden, feeding like pigs, the children of the
poor, and thank God that the volcano upon which in seeming security
you rested found a vent without tossing you heavenward. There would
have been rivers of blood instead of lava; the ballot of 1892 was your
salvation.
Slumbering wrath was in the breasts of the people. One Robespierre or
Danton would have set aflame this feeling, and the “Common People”
only need a leader, an organizer who will teach them under form of law
that their mighty voice is paramount, and the sham aristocracy will be
crushed and annihilated, as was a better aristocracy in France in the
latter part of the eighteenth century. Don’t let history repeat itself.
Can such pictures as depicted in these few lines of the _Herald_ about
those poor children’s Thanksgiving dinner, the feast proposed by the
“Four Hundred” at Madison Square Garden, be accurate and represent
scenes in free America, the richest, freest, best country on earth?
or are these some occurrences seen in poor, starving, Czar-ridden
Russia? A bow of promise was in the sky that Thanksgiving Day,
however. The people had spoken a few days before. They had selected
their representatives to make laws relieving them of the presence of
such scenes as above described. They had selected an Executive of
unquestioned honesty, who will execute such laws as will emanate from
the representatives of the people.
The people had given no sign, but in silence had been thinking of
scenes like that proposed at Madison Square Garden. They had voted
November the 8th in silence.
Silence is often more dangerous than utterance. The deadly cobra gives
no signal before he strikes. “General apathy” and the silence of the
people was deadly earnest, and you know whether it was forceful or not.
And if the party that the people have put in power will not do the will
of the people, then the people will put some other party in power which
_will_ execute the desire of the masses. It is a quicksand that the
rich tread upon. So accustomed have the rich become to the patience,
long-enduring suffering of the poor, that they deem it impossible that
any condition could exist other than the present. Only remember that
Charles Stuart, Louis XVI., Tarquin, all thought it was impossible
that aught could interfere with the set order of things; but righteous
indignation, the wrath of the people, like a whirlwind may obliterate
the little edifices of dust built upon the past.
The rest of the story, so vividly portrayed by the _Herald_, is worthy
of consideration and attention:--
“I visited the house of J. W. Grimes, a striker, on the hillside,
above the mill. He had a pair of rubbers on his feet. The rubbers
were worn away and had been sewed together with twine. ‘You see,
my shoes are so bad,’ said the mill-man, apologetically, ‘that I
have to wear these rubbers. Jim Sweeney threw them away, but I
found them and sewed them up,’ and he exhibited a shoe that would
almost have fallen from his foot, but for the rubber which held it.
“Grimes was doing the family washing when I met him. His arms were
covered with soapsuds. He told me his wife was very sick. He had
been injured in the mill before the strike and had been able to
save but little. Since the strike he has been able to get only a
few days’ work, and his wife took in washing and did scrubbing to
keep the family in bread. Now she is near death’s door, a mere
apparition, while her husband has no work and there is little in
the house.
“I went to the house of Bridget Coyle, who, during her testimony
in the Critchlow case the other day, said she would not tell a lie
for all the money Carnegie is worth. Two of her boys worked in the
mill; one has secured work in another city, but is making barely
enough to keep himself. Another son is at Homestead, and idle.
‘We have enough in the house to keep us another week,’ said Mrs.
Coyle, ‘but after that the Lord knows what we’ll do. I just got a
little coal on trust, and do wish I had a pair of shoes.
“‘We own this little house; my son paid the last on it just before
the strike.’ She had rented, out a couple of rooms to Joshua
Bradshaw, a mill-man, with his wife and four children. ‘They owe
me six months’ rent, but Lord, I know they can’t pay it, so I
don’t ask them. They are poor people, and the missus is badly
sick.’
“Patrick Sweeney, another ex-striker, who can’t get work in the
mill, and who lives on Sixteenth street, has been hunting for a
pair of shoes for several days. Those he has were shoes once, now
they are tatters. Sweeney, like dozens of the other men, has paid
no rent for several months, and lives in daily dread that his
family will be evicted. Being blacklisted, he cannot find work in
Homestead or elsewhere.
“William Davis, of Fourteenth street, told me there wasn’t a
pound of coal in his house, and a little less in the house of his
mother, who lives alongside of him.”
AN APPEAL FOR AID.
“The instances mentioned are only an index to the suffering.
Through personal pride most of the misery in Homestead is hidden
as yet. When winter sets in, dozens of cases will come to light.
“On Saturday a meeting will be held to issue a call for aid. It
has been called by Elmer Bales and John Wilson.
“Mr. Bales said to-day: ‘There is positive suffering in Homestead
from lack of food, fuel, and clothing. The sufferers will not
speak of their distress to you or any other outsider, but we who
live here know of it only too well. In a week or two it will be
much worse.’
“Hugh O’Donnell did not eat any turkey in the Allegheny county
jail. There was no observance of Thanksgiving in his case. He was
compelled to put up with the regular prison fare, which is not
fattening to those who have tried it.”
Capital has vanquished labor at Homestead; but the skirmish left
scars which will long remain unforgotten. Labor suffered, and learned
that the power of the people resided in their presence at the polls
on election day, when Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others of the sham
aristocrats and believers in “caste,” became of no more importance than
each poor laborer, workman, mechanic, clerk, shopkeeper, or farmer, to
whom on other days they assumed an air of superiority. The learning
of the lesson was worth all the suffering that it cost the “Common
People,” as represented by the workmen and strikers at Homestead, Pa.
CHAPTER IX.
POSSIBLE FRUITS OF VICTORY.
We have considered, and we hope with charitable eyes, the scenes
resulting from the victory in that skirmish at Homestead, between
Carnegie, Frick, and the Common People; we have thought of the
result of the picket fire at Buffalo between organized labor and the
combination of capital represented by the New York Central Railroad;
both of which engagements, while only out-post encounters of the
on-marching army of the Common People, were decisive victories for the
capitalists, the sham aristocrats, believers in “caste.” In the name
of law and order (so dear to the American heart) they had appealed to
the power of the State to protect, with militia, their property, and
that militia, ever loyal and truly American, had responded to the call
of the Executives (both Democrats) of the two most powerful States in
the Union. That militia, largely composed of poor men, and men of the
people, absolutely abhorring anything like the disregard of established
laws, had responded to the call of the Governor of each respective
State, New York and Pennsylvania. Law and order were re-established by
the people of which the militia is but part. Two Democratic Governors,
like patriotic citizens that they are, had bowed their heads before
enacted laws--no matter what their personal feeling may have been upon
the subject--and granted protection to the property of the capitalists,
who, as citizens of each State, were entitled thereto, no matter by
what means the capitalists and sham aristocrats may have acquired
that property. The result of the action of these two Governors, and
the acquiescence by the people and the support of the militia, is
incontestible evidence that Socialism and Anarchism have no home in
America.
The people accepted the result, as did the people of Homestead
starvation and distress, because its presence at every hearth became
a matter of trifling consequence; each hearth of the poor “Common
People” of America is illuminated and warmed by the patriotic fires
lighted thereon by our forefathers in 1776. The law must be obeyed!
As long as that law exists, unrepealed, unmodified, or unamended, it
must be obeyed! And the might of the people, the “Common People,” the
Abraham Lincoln party, the Andrew Jackson party, the Thomas Jefferson
party, and the Grover Cleveland party, all guarantee the enforcement
of every law upon our statute-books. And the chiefest of these is the
Constitution of the United States of America, wherein is guaranteed
the franchise of every citizen; wherein is declared that the “majority
shall rule in America.” The poor, the “Common People,” have suffered
defeat in their strikes and attempted resistance to the claim of social
difference existing in our country. They have borne the arrogance,
insults, and wrongs inflicted by a sham aristocracy. All attempts at
correction of the evil have proved abortive.
On November 8, 1892, the “Common People” resorted to that most
efficacious of remedies in this great Republic, the ballot-box; and
their victory was as great and pronounced as their suffering had
been severe in the past. As the fruit of their victory, as in 1860,
they will place in the Presidential chair at Washington a MAN OF THE
PEOPLE--Grover Cleveland--whom they believe to be honest, as they
believed that Abraham Lincoln was honest, in 1860. They have elected
the men of their choice, men representing the “Common People,” to both
branches of the Legislature of the National Government. They have
selected those who will express the sentiments of the “Common People”
in the legislative halls of the nation. They, the “Common People,” will
be heard through their representatives in the Congress of the Union.
From the sad picture of unsuccessful strikes, starvation, and
destitution, let us turn to the more pleasing picture of the
possibilities offered by this exhibition of the POWER OF THE PEOPLE.
Carnegie, Frick, Webb, and others, have enjoyed a transient, delusive
dream in which the delights of victory were enjoyed for the moment. Now
comes the time of the people! They have learned that their power does
not lie in associations, amalgamations, and organization. It lies in
the selection by the majority, at the ballot-box, of representatives
who will express the will of the people in making the laws of the
land, such laws as will enforce and insure equality, the extinction of
“caste,” and the protection of the poor men, who constitute the larger
portion of the population of our country, and are therefore greater,
being the majority on election day, than the rich, sham aristocrats,
who have insulted, jeered, and snubbed the poor during the past
twenty-five years.
Now will come the crucial test of the honesty and fidelity reposed, by
the people, in the administration and legislative bodies elected by
them. Should they prove recreant and traitors to the trust reposed in
them, it would be the first time in the history of the nation (with
possibly the single exception of John Tyler, who became President by
the death of William Henry Harrison). Then, should the will of the
people become manifest through the agency of their representatives, in
Congress assembled, whereby the present laws be repealed; if it become
evident that it was the will of the people that the Constitution of the
United States should be amended, so as to be in accordance with the
laws the enactment of which the people demanded, the legislators would
be obliged to so amend and change the Constitution of the United States
to make it consistent with the will of the people. Rock and foundation
of the edifice of the Federal Government, the Constitution as it is,
that which is more powerful than even the Constitution is the will of
the people, the majority of the citizens of the Union, irrespective
of wealth or assumed social position. It has been demonstrated that
by some peculiar kind of method the wealth of the nation is becoming
centralized in the hands of a few families and persons who render
possible the construction of an oligarchy similar to that existing in
the Republic of Venice.
Suppose that the people should demand and insist upon the passage of
an income tax for the support of the Federal Government, which would
relieve them, the “Common People,” from paying for the privileges
enjoyed by the rich, of living in a Republic and the security which
their property there enjoys.
And, suppose that the sham aristocracy should cry, “Inherent Rights,”
as they would; the people might respond that it is not a question as
to the Inherent Right of Mr. Astor, Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Rockefeller,
_et al._, to possess, under the present system of laws, any amount of
property. It is a mere question of the Will of the People. Many good,
learned, and great Constitutional lawyers have argued, and with much
apparent truth, that the federation of States prior to 1865 was but a
mutual copartnership entered into by the sovereign States, springing
from the original thirteen colonies, constituting but a copartnership,
surrendering no right to the firm or copartnership except such rights
as had been specifically named in the Federal Constitution.
Without entering into the legal aspects of the case, as to whether
these claims be just or not; without assuming to know whether the
nullification proposed by John C. Calhoun was legally sound; without
discussing the question whether South Carolina and the other States of
the South had a _right_ to secede and disintegrate the Union; assuming
that they had the right, inherently, and to draw a parallel to the
assumed Inherent Right of the rich of America under the laws and the
Constitution as they now exist, their attention might be attracted
profitably to the lesson that was taught the minority in the South when
they assumed to exercise Inherent Rights contrary to the wishes of the
majority. 2,800,000 bayonets, with the flag of the Union floating over
them, was conclusive argument that the Inherent Rights claimed by the
Southern States were actually Wrongs in a Republic.
“Vox populi, vox Dei.” The voice of the people, the majority, is the
voice of God in a Republic, from which there is _no appeal_. Seek it,
as the South did in 1861, and the result will be the same. THE MAJORITY
WILL RULE.
Suppose that the Common People should demand a repeal of all the
revenue laws, a repeal of all tariff duties and protection which
did not result in direct benefit to them; suppose that they should
insist that, except so far as protection benefited them (the “Common
People”) by an increase of wages, which should be arrived at by a
fair adjustment of the conflicting interests of capital and labor,
adjusted by a board of arbitration selected by them, the Common People;
suppose that the people should demand that these tremendous incomes
enjoyed by the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goulds, Carnegies, Fricks, and
others, should pay the pensions of the Federal soldiers who fought
for the preservation of the Union; suppose the people should demand
that the expenses of the Federal Government, instead of being levied
upon _them_, should be levied upon the incomes of those who remained
at home in safety during the four years of the Civil War; who, while
far away from the field of battle, have speculated upon the necessities
and needs of the nation, who have utilized that protection, born in
a spirit of patriotic desire to furnish means for the support of the
defenders of the Union, emanating from patriotic principles of the
Abraham Lincoln Republican party; suppose that the people should
demand that they--not out of the accumulated mass, but out of the
interest upon the amount accumulated under existing laws--which said
laws the people, through their representatives, shall deem wise to
change--requiring that in the future these masters of immense wealth
shall contribute a share to the defraying of the expenses of the
Government commensurate with the advantages they have derived, from the
load of debt, in the shape of pensions and otherwise, occasioned by the
Civil War, wherein the Union was preserved.
Let us imagine a scale of income tax for the people of America:
$5000 and under, untaxed; $5000 and over, to be taxed. If the chosen
representatives of the people, selected by them last November and to
be selected by the various State Legislatures elected by the people
within the near future, refuse to make such an enactment as an income
tax upon all incomes of more than $5000; suppose the people organize
themselves, and call upon the country in a general election; gentlemen
of aristocratic proclivities, where will you be? Of the mass of
freeborn American citizens (quite as good as the sham aristocrats) not
five per cent. enjoy an income as great as $5000. Would you resort
to physical force? The Hon. J. Brisben Walker, in his article in the
_Cosmopolitan_, indicates the true position that you would occupy.
Consider the possibility. Yell “Unconstitutional.” Proclaim that it is
illegal. The people would change the Constitution. By the voice of the
majority, they would change the laws.
What have you to offer to stem this tide of indignation that you have
provoked? Do you say, “Capital would leave the country?” Well, you
can’t carry the railroads, the factories, the soil, the buildings from
America. You may have your castles in Scotland, but we have your plants
of machinery, your buildings, and that upon which your security depends
and is founded is in our power in America. Would you secede, as the
Plebeians proposed to do from the Patricians at Rome, and found a
city on the Sacred Hills of your sham aristocracy? The Plebeians, the
Common People, would never seek you with the olive branch of peace and
promise offers of compromise, as did the Patricians of old seek the
Plebeians, but they would recall to your attention in forceful manner
the lesson taught to the Southerners in 1861, when the “Common People,”
the majority in America, by their might, overpowered and overturned the
seceders who, when they found that the minority, even though blessed
with an attempted social superiority, could not rule in the American
Republic, sought to secede.
The Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Astors, Fricks, and others, would be as
helpless in such a struggle, and never as brave and earnest, as was
Lee’s decimated army at Appomattox.
What the people _should_ or _will_ do, it does not interest us to
discuss. What they _can_ do is to require that the payment of the taxes
for the support of the nation be derived from those sources which
have become hateful and oppressive to the people; and, at a general
election, the men who form the majority would be those whose incomes do
not exceed $5000--no, not even $2000 per annum.
Then, let us establish for the fancy of our sham aristocrats a picture
for those who believe in the crime of “Caste” in our country, to dwell
upon. The victors at Homestead and at Buffalo would do well, while
imbibing the sweet draughts of victory, to consider the bitter cup of
hemlock that the people can require them to partake of. Anything is
possible in a Republic, by the votes of the majority.
_All incomes less than five thousand dollars to be entirely exempt from
taxation; from five to ten thousand, a tax of five per cent.; from ten
to twenty thousand, ten per cent.; from twenty to fifty, twenty per
cent.; from fifty to a hundred, forty per cent.; from a hundred to two
hundred, fifty per cent.; from two hundred thousand to half a million,
seventy-five per cent.; from half a million and onward, ninety per
cent._
There is no pretence in this scale to be equitable or just. That could
be arrived at by the statistician and the legislators. It is merely an
example of what the people CAN AND MAY DO. The fund thus derived would
more than defray all the expense of the Federal Government, pensions
included, and increase the pensions besides.
What is to prevent the enactment of such a law, if the majority should
demand it?
You may say, Gentlemen of the Privileged Classes, “It is contrary to
the spirit of the Republic. It will amount to confiscation.” To men
of the Carnegie, Frick, and Webb stamp the people might reply, “Was
the hiring of armed bullies, outcasts, and residents of other States
consistent with the spirit of the Republic? When you have formed those
hirelings into a private army to do your bidding against the lives of
your fellow citizens, is it not late in the day for you to call up
‘the Spirit of the Republic’? You have gloated in triumph over your
victories and the wants of the people. You have seen us surrounded by
starvation and destitution. You, professing Christianity, have made us
objects of your contempt and insult. Our daughters have not been safe
from the contaminating gaze of your weak, puerile progeny. You have
adopted crests, castes, social distinctions, sham aristocracy. You have
bowed the knee before the degenerate British peerage. You have taken
the money earned by our labor to purchase alliances with the decayed
aristocracy of Europe. Is it not _late_, good my would-be lords and
barons, to call up the Spirit of 1776?”
And, even should it come, like the spectres of the dream of Richard
III., would it not make you quake and quiver, so contrary are your
wishes to the spirit of the founders of the Union?
“Impracticable, the collection of these taxes,” is one of the excuses
for their non-imposition. The people have trusted Grover Cleveland
with the power of executing the laws of the nation. The people believe
that, as Lincoln, Jackson, and Jefferson, he will not be recreant to
the trust reposed in him. He will collect the taxes; he will seize
the property of the corporations; he will imprison the perjurers. He
will perform the duties imposed upon him, in the high office of the
nation to which the will of the people has called him. He will see that
the mandates of the people are obeyed. This tremendous accumulation
of fortunes must cease! A Vanderbilt leaves a hundred million to one
son! At five per cent. per annum, the income is five millions each
year. It is impossible for him to spend it. The difference between his
expenses and his income is added to this mighty mass of money, which
is concentrating each year more and more, compounding the interest
thereon, in the hands of a few citizens of the Republic. Mr. Gould
dies and leaves a hundred millions. If evenly distributed between his
children, it would be impossible for the income to be spent, and it
would simply accumulate, generation after generation. The Astors have
adopted a habit, like most of the rich men of the nation, in imitation
of English entailment, of leaving the bulk of their property to the
eldest son, while apportioning off the younger children with a million
or two. The impossibility of that elder son spending the income is
perfectly apparent. The object is to accumulate, in the hands of a few
families, the wealth of the nation. The tendency is exactly in that
direction.
Not only is it un-American, but especially obnoxious to the people
generally, as it tends toward the accumulation of wealth, not only
to an unwholesome but to an alarming degree, in the hands of the
eldest sons of these families. It is practically the entailment of the
estate, without so announcing it. Let us take, for example, the Goulds,
Vanderbilts, or Astors, and let this peculiar kind of distribution of
their property continue, apportioning out the younger members of the
family with a comparatively small sum, but leaving the bulk to the
first son. Is it not concentrating wealth in the hands of one man, the
income of which it is impossible that he should spend? The accumulation
still goes on from generation to generation until, practically, the
money power of our land lies within the grasp of the representatives of
a few families. Let us imagine the condition of affairs a few hundred
years hence, if we allow the Vanderbilts, Goulds, Rockefellers and
Astors to apportion off, from generation to generation, the younger
sons and daughters of the family, concentrating the vast accumulation
from the interests of their tremendous fortunes in the hands of one
representative of the family. Some dozen men of this great Republic,
by a combination, could then practically control at all times the
financial situation of the nation. There is no possibility of an
equalizing process and the scattering of the wealth and accumulations
of these families. From generation to generation, under this peculiar
method of distribution and disposal adopted by our would-be nobility,
there would be created a condition exactly similar to that existing in
the pre-eminently commercial Venice, from which thraldom the Common
People were only relieved by a foreign conqueror, Napoleon, whom they
welcomed with unpatriotic joy because he brought relief from the
discriminations with which the masses were cursed.
No one will deny that, under the existing laws, Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt,
the gentleman (?) who so forcefully and elegantly expressed himself in
the utterance of his sentiments, “The public be damned,” had a perfect
right, under the laws as they now exist, to leave the bulk of his
property to his eldest son. Nay, he might have called him the Duke of
Vanderbilt, if he pleased. By the pleasure of the people, he had the
right to dispose of his possessions as to him seemed best.
[Illustration: WM. H. VANDERBILT,
AUTHOR OF THE FAMOUS SPEECH, “THE PUBLIC BE D----D.”]
This is all perfectly within the bounds of and consistent with the laws
that the people have made; but remember, that these people who made
these laws can UNMAKE them; they can require that a man’s property
shall be equally divided among all of his children; they can tax it so
that this infernal and ever-increasing income shall not create such
an accumulation as to present a danger to the life and existence of
the Republic. And this is not against the law. Good my lords, as the
barons, the Common People will kill this “caste,” not by the headsman’s
axe that decapitated the Stuart, not by the guillotine that drank the
blood of a Bourbon; but they’ll do it with legislation, more peaceful,
more quiet, and with more “general apathy;” but the result will be just
as efficacious.
Now that the nation, composed of the Common People of America, has
suffered the assumption, upon the part of these few families, of a sham
aristocracy and attempted “caste” in this country; suppose, when the
people have felt the power that lies in them, that they should rise in
their might and decree that the support of the Federal Government shall
come from that surplus income, instead of permitting it to accumulate
in the hands of each succeeding generation of a few families in
America. What, again it may be asked, can the sham aristocrats do about
it?--you people of the Carnegie, Astor, Vanderbilt class. The people
decree it, and you must bow your heads to their will.
The people are not socialistic. They do not believe in the division
of property. Men like Dolan, at the Clover Club in Philadelphia, and
others of his kind, deliberately libel and traduce the Common People
when they pretend to explain the defeat of the Republican party upon
the ground of a socialistic tendency in the people of this nation. The
lie is apparent by the action of the militia, composed of the Common
People, both at Homestead and Buffalo. The people are for law and order.
The poor man’s morals are quite as good or better than the morals of
the rich. His home is as sacred, and the slimy serpent of Nihilism is
as objectionable in his home as it would be to the millionaire in his
palace of grandeur. The little holdings of the poor man, his farm, his
tool chest, and his furniture, are his; and he holds the right to own
them as dear as Astor holds his right to his property in many hundred
houses. The poor man, the Common People, nowhere in this broad Union
wants anarchy. He’ll stamp it out, as he did in Chicago, and it is a
libel upon him and the nation, for the rich and those who would impose
the yoke of “caste,” to attempt to wave the bloody shirt of Socialism
by their speeches on this subject.
But this accumulation of property in the hands of the few, to the
detriment of the nation, has become so pronounced and overwhelming in
its productiveness of evil that, suppose the people should--for they
could, by means of an income tax--decree that it should cease. Now,
men of a sham and wealthy aristocracy, what would you do about it?
You would be obliged to drink your cup of hemlock, as the striker at
Homestead was obliged to partake of his draught of defeat.
Gentlemen, who assume to be better every other day in the year, but who
realize on election day that your votes are no better, and count for no
more, than the laborer’s, mechanic’s, and the poor man’s all over our
land, what are you going to do about it? It is a condition so pregnant
with possibilities that it should occasion you to take thought. Do not
arouse the resentment of your fellow-citizens; poor they may be, but
rich in their rights as freemen. By the exercise of their franchise
they can make legal that which would demand a division of some of
your ill-gotten gains for the support of the Federal Government, thus
lightening the taxes upon those who can least afford to pay them.
[Illustration: W. SEWARD WEBB,
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL R. R.]
The poor have learned; the workman has been taught by sad experience;
the laborer has had it forced down his throat, by the point of the
bayonet in the hands of the militiamen, that he cannot hope to
win in the battle against capital by strikes or organized labor.
Homestead, and the wretched condition of the people there, is fraught
with significance, to the laboring man, of the consequences of his
ineffectual battle against capital. He knows that to resort to
violence, mob law, dynamite, is against the spirit of the people of
America. In his heart of hearts his home is as dear to the workman as
yours is to you, Mr. Carnegie. He does not believe in anarchy, and the
dissolution of law, order, and the morals of the people any more than
you do. He doesn’t believe, any more than you do, Mr. Son-in-law Seward
Webb, in the destruction of property. He feels oppressed; he feels
that the burden has been laid too heavily upon his shoulders; he is
irritated at the load he is carrying; no longer will he resort, as the
acme of his hopes, to a strike or a labor organization; he has learned
in the election of 1892 that the power to correct these evils is his;
that on election day, at the polls, he may right these wrongs. Be you
warned, who count your millions, that the bandage which has blinded
the eyes of the poor, making them fight at shadows, has been removed
from their eyes, and that they will make such a vigorous and effectual
onslaught upon your cherished bulwarks of bullion that the equalizing
process may become so rapid and effectual as to demolish your cherished
fortresses of wealth.
It is not to disorganize society; it is not to overturn religion, or
resort to Nihilism, that the tendency of the workingman’s mind leans.
It is your presumption, arrogance, and overwhelming self-esteem that
has offended him. A baby’s finger may touch the spring holding the bar
by which is caged the lion. The lion once uncaged, and a hundred men
cannot restrain its freedom. A little stream of water, flowing over the
top of a dam, might have been stopped by a handful of mud in the hands
of a child; increasing, the stream weakens the barrier; the dam has
gone, the flood has come.
There’s a little stream of truth trickling over the dam that holds back
the flood of the resentment of the people; silently, softly, with an
appearance of “apathy,” it began to move, until the rich received the
first spray, notifying them of its approach, November the 8th, 1892.
CHAPTER X.
THE CAUSE OF BULLETS, ’61; BALLOTS, ’92.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE PEOPLE’S
CHOICE IN ’60.
Of political parties in America, De Tocqueville declared that
“Aristocratic or democratic passions may easily be detected at
the bottom of all parties, and although they escape a superficial
observation, they are the main point and soul of every faction in the
United States.”
That greatest conflict of American history, the military and political
struggle between the forces of slavery and the forces of human freedom,
was no less a conflict between aristocracy and democracy. In the
South, which President-elect Cleveland only the other day termed--with
undoubted historical accuracy--the cradle of American liberty, there
had been developed a social and political aristocracy as distinct and
powerful as almost any the world has seen.
To this development, which did not become marked until after the early
part of the present century, many causes contributed. The industry of
the South had become centralized in the hands of large land owners
who cultivated extensive plantations with slave labor. The tremendous
growth of slavery exerted a depressing effect upon the manufacturing
spirit; the artisan, the mechanic, and the trader came to be regarded
as socially inferior. The planting of rice, sugar cane, and especially
cotton, which was found to be the most profitable business, was also
the most esteemed; and the South became an almost purely agricultural
section.
Lorin Blodget lays it down as an accepted rule that “the country wholly
devoted to agriculture necessarily tends to aristocratic despotism,
or some form of enslavement of the masses;” and he quotes similar
expressions from Adam Smith, Buckle, and other recognized authorities
on political economy.
Nor are reasons hard to find. De Tocqueville points out that the great
guarantees of popular liberty in America are universal education and
the general division of landed property. Now, in a purely agricultural
country the education of the people is certain to be defective.
The population is necessarily dispersed, for where there are no
manufactories there can be few towns; and where there are few towns
there are fewer and less efficient schools, and libraries and lyceums
are practically unknown. Harrison’s “History of Virginia” states that
that State had, in 1848, 166,000 youths between seven and sixteen years
old, of whom only 40,000 attended any school.
Landed property had naturally tended to fall more and more into a few
hands. As John Stuart Mill said of ancient Rome: “When inequality
of wealth once commences in a community not constantly engaged in
repairing, by industry, the injuries of fortune, its advances are
gigantic; the great masses swallow up the smaller. The Roman Empire
ultimately became covered with the vast landed possessions of a
comparatively few families, for whose luxury, and still more for
whose ostentation, the most costly products were raised, while the
cultivators of the soil were slaves or small tenants in a nearly
servile condition.” The description is closely applicable to the landed
aristocracy of the South in the years immediately before the war.
It is a mistake--a not uncommon mistake--to suppose that the
_ante-bellum_ South was poor. It was rich--considerably richer than the
North, in proportion to its population. In 1860 the South had much more
than its share of the assessed wealth of the nation. The total value
of property in the Union was $12,000,000,000, and of this the Southern
States, with only one-third of the country’s population (and less than
one-fourth of the country’s _white_ population), had $5,000,000,000, or
more than forty per cent.
But in the agricultural South wealth was far more unevenly distributed
than in the manufacturing and commercial North. In the latter great
fortunes were made, but were almost sure to be distributed among
several heirs, or lost in the fluctuations of trade, while the
prevalence of the industrial and inventive spirit opened the path of
advancement to those born at the bottom of the ladder. In the former,
large landed properties were handed down from father to son, and tended
to grow larger by accretion, as is the rule with great estates. The
small land owner could not compete with them. The peasant, whose only
calling was the tilling of the soil, had little prospect of bettering
his condition.
“The Southern planter,” says a member[2] of one of the old landed
families, who is now well known as the self-appointed manager of
New York society, “was a born aristocrat. He had literally as much
power in his little sphere as any old feudal lord. His slaves were
the creatures of his caprice and pleasure. The work of their hands
supported him, gave him his position and influence. I have lived on a
plantation with twelve hundred slaves, all devotedly attached to their
master, evidencing as much loyalty and fealty as an Englishman to his
sovereign, and taking great pride in their master and mistress.”
The planter’s life was one of patriarchal magnificence. His
entertainments, according to the same authority, “would be appreciated
in the old Faubourg at Paris;” his wines were old and abundant; his
songs were the ballads of his historical prototype, the mediæval baron
of England:
“Lord Thomas, he was a bold forester,
The keeper of the King’s deer;
Lady Eleanor was a fine woman,
Lord Thomas he loved her dear.”
Political power within its own commonwealths was of course practically
monopolized by this land-owning caste. Of power in national politics it
wielded a tremendous share. It had taken advantage of that feature of
the Federal Constitution which, when it was first framed, Patrick Henry
attacked when he prophesied that “an aristocracy of the rich and well
born would spring up and trample upon the masses.” Outnumbered in the
House of Representatives, it had firmly intrenched itself in the United
States Senate.
In that body, up to the time just before the war, when it was no longer
possible to create a new Southern State to offset each Northern
State, it held half the seats and votes--a position that gave it
complete control of all Presidential nominations to office. Through its
possession of this unassailable veto power on appointments, it had come
to pass that, as Mr. Blaine observes in his “Twenty Years of Congress,”
“the Courts of the United States, both Supreme and District, throughout
the Union, were filled with men acceptable to the South. Cabinets were
constituted in the same way. Representatives of the government in
foreign countries were necessarily taken from the class approved by
the same power. Mr. Webster, speaking in his most conservative tone in
the famous speech of March 7, 1850, declared that from the formation
of the Union to that hour the South had monopolized three-fourths of
the places of honor and emolument under the Federal Government. It was
an accepted fact that the class interest of slavery, by holding a tie
in the Senate, could defeat any measure or any nomination to which its
leaders might be opposed; and, thus banded together by an absolutely
cohesive political force, they could and did dictate terms.”
Such was the land-holding, slave-holding, office-holding aristocracy,
against which the first directly and avowedly antagonistic movement was
that of the Republican party. Young and weak in its first Presidential
contest of 1856, the new organization gathered strength steadily; and
when, on April 29, 1860, the Democratic Convention at Baltimore was
rent asunder by the Secessionists, it became clear that the Republicans
would have to face the threatened disruption of the Union.
The Republican Convention met at Chicago and chose, in preference
to the able and experienced Seward, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a
man who, then comparatively unknown, was to take rank as perhaps the
noblest and greatest of all America’s sons.
Lincoln, when asked for an account of his boyhood, said that it
might be summed up in Crabbe’s famous line: “The short and simple
annals of the poor.” J. G. Holland thus reviews the career of the
man who led the struggle that began in 1860: “Born in the humblest
and remotest obscurity, subjected to the rudest toil in the meanest
offices, achieving the development of his powers by means of his own
institution, he had, with none of the tricks of the demagogue, with
none of the aids of wealth and social influence, with none of the
opportunities for exhibiting his powers which high official position
bestows, against all the combinations of genius and eminence and
interest, raised himself by force of manly excellence of heart and
brain into national recognition, and had become the local center of
the affectionate interest and curious inquisition of thirty millions of
people.”
To the end of his life, Lincoln was the very incarnation of democratic
simplicity. He was never at home in a drawing-room; he never could
dispose gracefully his hands and feet--appendages whose size was
proportionate to his huge stature. After his nomination for the
Presidency, he used to answer his own bell at his little house in
Springfield, Illinois.
The people’s man of 1860, ABRAHAM LINCOLN! The pulse of patriotism
quickens at the pronunciation of the name. The people’s plain Abe
Lincoln; one of them, a commoner, of them, with them, like them.
To foreign nations, he may have appeared as “President Abraham
Lincoln, Chief Magistrate of the United States.” He may have been
“Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,” in the minds of his
subordinates in those two important branches of his administration
from ’61 to ’65. History may record him as the “wise, able, and
philanthropical.” But his memory will last enshrined in a temple more
lasting than bronze or stone--the hearts of the people.
To them he was Abe Lincoln--one of them, feeling their sensations,
a common bond between him and them. He was a democrat by birth, by
experience, by sentiment, reason, and patriotism. He was a President
of the masses, and how well and loyally did they love him! His homely
ways and phrases, his unadorned and vigorous speeches, were the ways of
the people, speeches of the people; loved by the people for the very
enemies he had made, for his enemies were the enemies of the people.
Every caricature of Lincoln was a caricature of the people; every
attack upon his personality was an attack upon the personality of the
“mudsills” of the people, and his call to arms was their call to arms,
and they sprang forward, responsive to his appeal, recognizing in it
their appeal, as no sham aristocrat or autocrat can ever hope to have a
nation do.
His memory will not remain green in the minds of the masses by his
martyrdom; but dear will the picture be, from generation to generation,
of the boy studying by the light of a flickering fire, and splitting
rails for daily bread; fighting his way onward and upward without
wealth, or powerful friends, until at last, in the supreme hour of the
people’s need, he comes to bear their standard in the battle which
they waged against “caste.” He did not come to the contest as a hired
soldier, but as a volunteer, feeling all that was felt by the common
soldier. It was _his_ battle, for he had felt the sting of class
distinction, as did every private soldier of his army.
Loving, loyal, faithful Abe Lincoln! May your name never be belittled
by any of your descendants adopting a crest or coat-of-arms. Your
coat-of-arms is engraved in figures as lasting as the eternal hills of
America upon the minds of the people. Should a degenerate descendant
seek a coat-of-arms, let him make it an axe and rail, surrounded
by the laurel wreath bestowed by the loving, trusting people; for
Abe Lincoln was best and only loved by the very term by which the
aristocrats attempted to disparage him--“the rail-splitter.” After
the election of Abraham Lincoln, while he remained at Springfield,
the chosen representative of the people, he was the most approachable
man in America; even though at that time he must have felt the heavy
weight of responsibility thrust upon him, viewing as he could the mass
which, like a snowball, was increasing as it progressed under the weak
administration of his predecessor. Think of the anxious hours that
this man spent, knowing what the people expected of him, and seeing
the number of his difficulties being added to, day by day, while
those who had the burden to bear were obliged, until the fourth of
the succeeding March, to sit still and watch the accumulation. Yet
in those anxious hours, while receiving counsel of the mighty of the
political world, many of whom were strangers to him and to whom he was
a stranger, yet, still, while watching thus, the pillar of the Union,
stone by stone falling away; while thus counselled, advised by those
he knew not whether to trust or not; while his mind must necessarily
have been weighed down with the thought of his own possible inability
to meet the expectations of his friends, the people, in that great
new sphere to which they had called him, Abe Lincoln still had time
to grasp the hand and wish good cheer to an old friend, neighbor, or
one of the people. From birth to death, his life will form a lesson
that the new Chief of the people whom they have called to be President
of the United States, Grover Cleveland, could well study, and Abe
Lincoln’s example emulate, if he would hold the love of those who, by
their votes, put him into the Presidential chair.
This man, Abraham Lincoln, represented that class of people who had
been dubbed “mudsills” by the orators who represented the believers
in “caste” in the South. He stood as the very personification of
“mudsillism,” which, read in the light of recently written history,
meant the Common People--that is, the majority; and the majority ruled
after his election in 1860, even though it required the use of bullets
against the aristocratic class, just as the majority will rule in 1892,
after the election of Grover Cleveland as representative of the Common
People.
The South sought by secession to absolve itself from the domination of
the masses. It was like the patricians of Rome seeking the Sacred Hill
to build a new city. It failed, as will ever the minority, representing
a false idea of American society and a false conception of the spirit
with which every American is imbued, do in the future. But, be it
said to the credit of the believers in aristocracy in 1860, that they
had the courage of their convictions, and they fought a manly battle
to establish that which is impossible in America. The history of the
Southerners’ sufferings and dangers, endured uncomplainingly, forms a
bright and shining exception to the conduct of the typical believer in
“caste.” Sham aristocracy, which has disregarded the rights and wounded
the feelings of the people for the past twenty-five years, that sham
aristocracy which is a direct outgrowth resulting from the suppression
of the Southern aristocracy, if tested as the Southern aristocracy
has been, would be found deficient in those qualities of courage and
determination which made even the Southerners’ false ideas respected
and respectable.
The sham aristocracy of to-day, unlike the false aristocracy of 1860,
would hire bullies, outcasts, and vagrants to do their fighting, as did
those magnificent illustrations of “caste” in our country, Carnegie and
Frick, at Homestead, and Son-in-law Webb at Buffalo.
The advocates of “caste” in 1860, the Southerners, not alone possessed
courage and determination, but, accepting the result of the conflict,
have exhibited since the days of Reconstruction that wonderful
degree of political acumen for which they have ever been famous.
Early recognizing that in their struggle for an independent national
existence, the Southern Confederacy, they had been defeated--not by
the aristocracy of the North and West, but by the Common People; that
is, the most powerful portion of the population of the Union--the
Southerner, the secessionist, the aristocrat of 1860, submerged himself
in the ocean of the Common People, the great majority, the democracy!
The Secessionist, who opposed Abraham Lincoln’s administration in 1860
and used bullets to express his opposition in 1861, had firm conviction
carried to his hesitating heart by the events that transpired between
1861 and 1865, that the “Common People”--the majority--must rule;
and that with the freeing of his slaves he had lost the only possible
foundation upon which he could rest his claim of social superiority
in this country. Therefore, as the wise man that he has demonstrated
himself to be, the aristocrat of 1860 has become the most earnest
and patriotic member of a broad democracy in 1892; realizing from
experience that upon that rock alone he can build the edifice of
prosperity in his section of the country; also realizing from a sad
experience that the Common People, democracy (though it was called
Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party), was the crag upon which his bark
of Secession was shivered in 1865.
[Illustration: ANDREW JACKSON.
The “People’s” President, 1828.]
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Of course I mean Ward McAllister. This is not from his book, but
from a recent article of his published in the New York _World_.
CHAPTER XI.
ANDREW JACKSON, 1828.
Jackson was in truth a popular idol. Hickory poles, the emblem of
devotion to “Old Hickory,” stood in every village throughout almost
every State, and at the street corners of many a city. In his own
Tennessee, less than three thousand votes were cast against him in the
entire State, and in many precincts he received every ballot.
The story is told of a stranger who visited a Tennessee village on the
afternoon of the election, and found its male population turning out
with their guns, as if for a hunt, and in a state of great excitement.
On inquiring what game they were after, he learned that they were
starting in pursuit of two of their fellow-citizens who had had the
audacity to vote against Jackson, thereby preventing the village from
casting a solid vote for “Old Hickory.” The miscreants had avoided a
tarring and feathering only by taking to the woods.
The result of the campaign was a triumph for Jackson. New England was
the stronghold of Adams, who received all its electoral votes except
one from Maine. The National Republicans also carried New Jersey and
Delaware, and New York and Maryland were divided. Every other State
declared solidly for Jackson, whose total vote was 178, to 83 for Adams.
During that campaign, the same question appeared on the surface as
that presented in the campaign of ’92. The Whig party represented
apparently higher tariff, and the Democrats were opposing the increase
of duty; but the fact remained that John Quincy Adams represented the
aristocracy of New England, and the Whig Party had become encrusted
with the same false stucco of “caste” that concealed the merits,
worth, and virtue of Lincoln’s Republican party in 1892. E’en the most
wonderful orator that America has ever produced, the great and honored
Daniel Webster, with all of his personal magnetism, magic of speech,
and logic of argument, could not boost the aristocrats of the Whig
party into power; even though the bill for a higher tariff had passed,
the cry was kept up, and was made to appear as one of the issues of the
campaign of 1892.
Andrew Jackson represented, in his person, the people, the masses.
By birth, education, and mode of living, Andrew Jackson was
identified with the Common People, and, as we are all common, with
all of the people. Like Abraham Lincoln, the masses saw in Andrew
Jackson a champion, ready and brave enough to resent the attempted
differentiation sought to be foisted upon the people of America by
the then Whig aristocracy--the claimed parent of the Republican
party. However, Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party was not a progeny
of the aristocrats of the Whig party. Andrew Jackson, in his person,
represented the purest type of the western pioneer, patriot, and
soldier, and such men in America will only be found in the ranks of the
people.
In 1828, John Quincy Adams, and his party of the would-be “Four
Hundred,” received at the hands of the people the same punishment and
rebuke that was administered to Benjamin Harrison and the Republican
party, which, just like the Whig party, had become hidden from the view
of the people by the glamour of wealth and would-be aristocracy that
was thrown over it. In Andrew Jackson, the people elected as their
chief one possessed of great firmness and decision of character, one
who was honest and true; not always correct in judgment, but when he
erred the people were ready to forgive him, because the error was one
of judgment and not of intention. He was of them, and like them, as
Abraham Lincoln was in 1860, and the people’s love and trust in him
erased from their memory mistakes that in another would have been
judged with a critical eye. He was often rash in expression and action,
but his very rashness was the rashness of a man untrained in duplicity.
He was not a diplomat. The people are not diplomatic, and he, as one
of them, could not be expected to possess characteristics other than
those of the mass. His actions were as a mirror in which the people saw
themselves. How the chord he struck, when he threatened to hang John
C. Calhoun and the nullifiers, finds a responsive echo in many of the
utterances of Abraham Lincoln! What two men so nearly resemble each
other to the people?
The mere idle calling one a Democrat and the other a Republican is, as
Hamlet says: “Words, words, words.” There is no significance in the
mere word Democrat and Republican. Both were men of the people, elected
as the choice of the masses, in the constant battle that the masses
wage against the crime of “caste.” The similarity in the characters of
Lincoln and Jackson is nowhere more forcibly illustrated than in that
both were patriots of the purest stamp.
Andrew Jackson took up the administration of the government with
fearless energy, feeling confident that he had the unalloyed loyalty
of the people to support him. Let us hope that Grover Cleveland,
with the same fearless courage, will wage war upon those things
objectionable to the people who have placed in his hands the weapons
with which to do battle.
The distinguishing act of Jackson’s first term was his veto of the
bill to re-charter the United States Bank--the boldest defiance that a
President ever cast to the money power of the country. “When President
Jackson attacked the Bank,” De Tocqueville notes, “the country was
excited and parties were formed. The well-informed classes rallied
round the bank, the Common People round the President.” It is a
commonplace of history that, in such cases, the “Common People” are
more often right than those who claim superior information. Jackson’s
veto is regarded by most observers as a remarkable popular victory over
a great capitalistic monopoly.
In none of the six Presidential campaigns between the time of Jackson
and that of Lincoln was the question of popular sovereignty _versus_
class pretensions brought into the contest as an issue, although events
were gradually shaping themselves for the great struggle in which the
period ended. Yet, in 1840, the Democratic personality of General
William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate, contributed not a little
to his success. The veteran soldier, statesman, and frontiersman had
spent most of his life in a log house beside the Ohio River, at North
Bend, Indiana. A log cabin was chosen by his political followers as
the symbol of his plain and unpretentious way of life, and a barrel of
cider as an emblem of his simple but generous hospitality. During the
“log cabin and hard cider” campaign all over the country, in cities,
villages, and hamlets, log cabins were erected as rallying places for
Harrison’s partisans, who met there to toast their champion in abundant
glasses of cider.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON.
The “People’s” President, 1800.]
CHAPTER XII.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1800.
In 1800 Adams was a candidate for re-election, and fully expected to
be successful. But the Democratic-Republican party, as the opposition
was now called, defeated him, and elected to the Presidency its great
leader, Thomas Jefferson.
At a glance, it will be seen that the Republican of 1800 was the
father of the Democratic party, the canonized Thomas Jefferson. The
people, even thus early in the history of our nation, had begun to give
evidence of that discontent at the aristocratic tendencies that even
“The Father of his Country,” George Washington, and his successor, John
Adams, displayed.
It would be considered almost sacrilege were we to republish here the
many attacks that were made upon George Washington, when President of
the United States, on account of the odor of aristocracy with which
he had become so strongly impregnated before the Revolution, and
which clung to him like the scent of the roses to the shattered vase.
While there can be no doubt, of course, in the minds of us all, that
Washington was pre-eminently a patriot, with a firm and steadfast faith
in the doctrine of the rights of the people; still, he belonged to a
section, to a State, that had been settled by Cavaliers who believed
that they were somewhat better by birth than the Pilgrims of New
England. And, having been born and educated in that atmosphere, it is
small wonder that his character should have been somewhat attainted by
his surroundings.
Upon Washington’s elevation to the Presidential chair he surrounded
the executive mansion with more of the air of ceremony and evidences
of “caste” than were pleasant to the mass of the people. He was
attacked, during his first and second terms, by pamphleteers, who, in
most scurrilous articles, wrote of him as one designing to perpetuate
aristocracy and “caste” in our country. The debt of gratitude which
the new Republic and the people thereof owed Washington was too great
for any effect to be produced similar to the revolution in 1892.
However, an impression was made; reluctantly, John Adams, Washington’s
Vice-President, was elected as second President of the Union. This
reluctance became apparent by his failure to be re-elected four years
later.
A Minister from the United States to England always seems to become a
suspicious object in the minds of the people of America. No man ever
added to his popularity by being sent as Minister to the Court of St.
James. John Adams, who was our first Minister, was but the beginning of
a long list of unfortunates. In fact, the American people will heartily
endorse the opinion of that great statesman, James G. Blaine, which is
being so vigorously advocated by the New York _Herald_, that foreign
Ministers are expensive and useless appendages of this Republic. The
election of John Adams was occasioned more by the reflected glory of
Washington and the gratitude of the people, which, like the rays of
the declining sun, became diminished as it sunk behind the horizon of
time. In Thomas Jefferson, the people, even thus early in the history
of our nation, saw _their_ friend. His simplicity of life, purity of
character, and honesty of purpose, surrounded his name with the same
halo, in the sight of the people, as that with which the names of
Jackson, Lincoln and Cleveland have since been made luminous. Though
Jefferson was called a Republican, still, to the people, he was a
Democrat in the sense that democracy means equality.
Never was there a statesman more thoroughly imbued with the principles
of popular liberty than Jefferson. “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience
to God”--Oliver Cromwell’s saying--was the motto engraved on his seal.
He had taken a leading part in the colonies’ struggle for freedom.
He was a member of the Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia
during the war, and--a yet greater title to immortality--author of the
Declaration of Independence. After the war he had been sent as American
Minister to France, where he sympathized warmly with the revolution
against Bourbon tyranny.
Jefferson’s election to the Presidency was universally regarded as a
great popular triumph. He was hailed everywhere as “the Man of the
People,” and the day that saw him inaugurated was celebrated with such
rejoicings as had not been witnessed since the news of peace came, in
1783. No business, no labor was done on the 4th of March, 1801. It
was a day of powder and parades, of church services, of bell-ringing,
of speeches, and illuminations. The country’s satisfaction seemed
unanimous.
“The exit of aristocracy” was a toast drunk at one great banquet that
evening; and when it had been duly honored, the band appropriately
struck up the “Rogue’s March.”
The inauguration itself was a simple affair enough. It has, indeed,
been asserted that Jefferson rode up Capitol Hill without a single
attendant, tied his horse to a picket fence, and walked alone into
the Senate chamber to take the oath of office. Professor McMaster
offers evidence to prove this story inaccurate. Jefferson was not
surrounded, on his induction into the Presidency, by such throngs as
attended the inaugurations of Washington and Adams in New York and
Philadelphia. But he went to the Capitol in the midst of a gathering of
citizens, with the accompaniment of drums, flags, cannon, and a troop
of militia. His dress was, as usual, that of a plain citizen, without
any distinctive badge of office. On taking the oath of office he said,
in a brief speech to the Senate: “I know that some honest men fear that
a republican government cannot be strong--that this government is not
strong enough. I believe this, on the contrary, to be the strongest
government on earth.”
Jefferson’s administration--so economical, business-like, and
democratic as to have made “Jeffersonian simplicity” a proverb--met
with such approval that when he was re-elected in 1804 only fourteen
votes were recorded against him. Only in one State--Massachusetts--was
there any excitement in the campaign.
The supremacy of the Democratic-Republican party lasted practically
unchallenged until John Quincy Adams was elected, under peculiar
circumstances, in 1824. There were in that year three leading
candidates for the Presidency--Adams, Clay, and Jackson. As neither
of them commanded a majority of the Electoral College, the question
was referred to the House of Representatives, which selected Adams as
being, in a measure, a compromise candidate.
John Quincy Adams was at that time acting with the Democratic party,
but he was, as James Parton points out in his “Life of Jackson,” “a
Federalist by birth, by disposition, by early association, by confirmed
habit.” And it soon became clear that Federalism, long supposed to
be dead, was “living, rampant, and sitting in the seat of power.”
Federalists were appointed to office--notably Rufus King, the most
conspicuous survivor of the original Federalists--who was sent as
minister to England. Adams was for stretching the Constitution, as the
old Federalists were. In his first message to Congress he advocated
government roads and canals, a government university and observatory,
government exploring expeditions, and the like.
His personality and manners revived the aristocratic traditions of his
father. In the state he maintained at Washington he was said to go
beyond the first President Adams. He refurnished the White House on
a grand scale, and shocked the frugal taste of the day by placing a
billiard table in it. The East Room, in which his excellent mother had
hung clothes to dry, was now a luxuriously fitted apartment.
“John II.” was the name that John Randolph of Roanoke bestowed upon
the son and heir of the “Duke of Braintree.” Randolph had hated the
Adams family since an incident that occurred on the day of Washington’s
inauguration, which he recalled long afterwards in one of his speeches.
“I remember,” he said, “the manner in which my brother was spurned by
the coachman of the Vice-President--John Adams--for coming too near the
vice-regal carriage.”
Even Mr. Blaine, who in his “Twenty Years of Congress” shows himself a
kindly critic of the Federalist ideas and Federalist leaders, admits
the “general unpopularity attached to the name of Adams.”
During John Quincy Adams’ administration the mutterings of a coming
political upheaval began to be heard. It began to be said that the
Presidency was growing too much like an hereditary monarchy. It was
becoming too settled a practice for each incumbent, after eight years
in office, to make his Secretary of State his political heir. It gave
the President what was almost equivalent to the power of appointing his
successor. John Quincy Adams, it was said, counted confidently on the
usual double term, and upon seeing his friend Clay, to whom he had
given the chief post in his Cabinet, elected to succeed him.
“The issue is fairly made out: Shall the government or the people
rule?” asked Andrew Jackson, and on that issue he appealed to the
country in his memorable electoral campaign against Adams, in 1828.
That was the bitterest Presidential contest that had ever been fought.
Jackson was attacked with unexampled ferocity. One day at his Tennessee
home, the Hermitage, his wife found him in tears. “Myself I can
defend,” he said, pointing to a newspaper which he had been reading;
“you I can defend; but now they have assailed even the memory of my
mother.” And it was, in great part, her distress at the invective that
was heaped upon her husband that caused the death of Mrs. Jackson just
after the election.
It was a pitched battle between the “classes” and the “masses.” As
James Parton says, in his biography of Jackson: “Nearly all the talent,
nearly all the learning, nearly all the ancient wealth, nearly all the
business activity, nearly all the book-nourished intelligence, nearly
all the silver-forked civilization of the country, united in opposition
to General Jackson, who represented the country’s untutored instincts.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE REVOLUTION IN 1776.
Revolt from aristocracy and detestation of “caste” in politics, in
religion, and in society, have been the key-notes of the whole history
of the Anglo-Saxon race in America. They were the incentives that first
led men of that race to seek homes beyond the Atlantic, and have ever
been the cardinal principles of the nation those pioneers founded.
The westward movement began with that era of English history marked by
the intolerable pretensions, in matters both of Church and State, of
the Stuart monarchs. The doctrine of the “divine right of kings,” which
cost Charles I. his head, was, with all that it meant, the grievance
that drove from England the settlers of the American colonies.
When James I., soon after his accession, was petitioned to allow
liberty of assembling and of discussion to all classes and sects of his
subjects, he replied that such a privilege “agrees with monarchy as
well as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall
meet, and at their pleasure censure me and my council and all our
proceedings. Then Will shall stand up and say: ‘It must be thus;’ then
Dick shall reply and say: ‘Nay, marry, but we will have it thus;’ and,
therefore, here I must say: ‘The king forbids.’”
The king forbade, but the native spirit of English liberty did not
acquiesce without a murmur. There were mutterings of the storm that
was to burst upon his son and successor in the full fury of rebellion.
The subservient Wentworth complained that “the very genius of this
nation of people leads them always to oppose, both civilly and
ecclesiastically, all that ever authority ordains for them.”
Most outspoken in opposition to royal encroachment were the
Puritans--those stern disciples of Calvin, who had furnished England
her first Protestant martyrs, Hooper and Rogers, and who, in the early
seventeenth century, were, as Hallam says, “the depositories of the
sacred fire of liberty.”
Many Puritans preferred to leave their native country rather than
submit. In 1607, a company of them were about to take sail for Holland
from the Humber, when they were arrested and forced to return to their
homes. In the following spring, they again attempted to escape. They
reached the Lincolnshire coast, and were embarking, when soldiers, who
had been dispatched in pursuit, rode down to the shore, and seized some
of the women and children. As the only fault of these prisoners was
that they had followed their husbands and fathers, they were afterward
released.
The fugitives, whose leaders were John Robinson, their minister, and
William Brewster, their ruling elder, first tarried at Amsterdam, and
the next year settled at Leyden. There they lived for eleven years--a
body of exiles, who did not fraternize with their Dutch neighbors, and
who gradually formed a plan of migrating to the new country beyond the
Atlantic, where they might be under their old flag, and yet hope for
civil and religious liberty.
In 1617, they sent two of their number to England, to secure for their
project the consent of the London Company, to which James I. had
granted proprietary rights over Virginia--then the general name of the
North American coast. The two embassies received a permit, although
they put no great trust in it. “If,” said they, “there should afterward
be a purpose to wrong us, though we had a seal as broad as the house
floor, there would be means enough found to recall or reverse.” They
did not foresee their future strength against oppression.
Thus it was that in the August of 1620 the Pilgrims set sail from Delft
Haven, and in November landed on the shores of Massachusetts--forty-one
families, numbering in all a hundred and two souls. Before they
landed, they signed a mutual agreement, covenanting “to enact,
constitute, and frame such just and equal laws as shall be thought
most convenient for the general good of the colony.” The agreement
was loyally kept in the face of hardship and danger from within and
without. The colony they planted grew in the spirit of popular liberty
as it grew from penury to prosperity.
Bancroft remarks that “in the early history of the United States,
popular assemblies burst everywhere into life, with a consciousness of
their importance and immediate efficiency.” This development of freedom
was attained in Virginia even earlier than in Massachusetts.
Virginia’s first struggle against usurping pretension was in 1624,
when James I. sent out royal commissioners with orders “to enquire
into the state of the plantation.” The colonists protested against the
commissioners’ proposal of absolute governors, and demanded the liberty
of their Assembly; “for nothing,” they said, “can conduce more to the
public satisfaction and public utility.” And the Assembly succeeded in
retaining its rights.
Thirty years later, a domestic attempt at usurpation was met with equal
firmness. Samuel Cotton, the elected governor of the colony, had a
quarrel with the Assembly, and arbitrarily proclaimed it dissolved.
The representative defied his authority, and speedily forced him to
yield. For even in that colony in America, where existed more of the
inclination to class distinction than in many other of the colonies,
the same spirit of hatred to “caste,” and the exercise of any assumed
superiority was deep-rooted, and thus early gave evidence of its
presence.
At the foundation of Virginia’s sister colony of Maryland, the king
expressly covenanted that neither he nor his successors would lay any
imposition, custom, or tax upon the inhabitants of the province. The
proprietors had the right to establish a colonial aristocracy, but
it was never exercised. “Feudal institutions,” says Bancroft, “could
not be perpetuated in the lands of their origin, far less renew their
youth in America. Sooner might the oldest oaks in Windsor forest be
transplanted across the Atlantic, than antiquated social forms. The
seeds of popular liberty, contained in the charter, would find in the
New World the soil best suited to quicken them.” One of the early acts
of the Provincial Assembly of Maryland was the framing of a declaration
of rights. And yet, it was in Baltimore, the metropolis of the State
of Maryland, that the first resistance was offered to the soldiers of
the people, who were going to enforce the will of the majority upon the
minority. Maryland, while, from proximity to the Federal capital, was
less inclined toward the secession movement, was still sufficiently
influenced by the aristocratic slave-holding part of her population
as to be the scene of the first actual resistance to the will of the
people in 1861.
The same spirit animated the pioneers of Connecticut, where Hooker
declared that “the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent
of the people.” When John Clark and William Coddington founded the
settlement of Newport, it was “unanimously agreed upon” among their
people that the body politic should be “a _Democracie_ or popular
government.” The colonization of Pennsylvania--“the holy experiment,”
as Penn called it--was inaugurated by its great leader with a solemn
pledge of “liberty of conscience and civil freedom.” And similar
incidents accompanied the birth of nearly every new colony.
As Massachusetts grew to be the most prosperous of the northern
colonies, she “echoed the voice of Virginia like deep calling unto
deep. The State was filled with the hum of village politicians; the
freemen of every town on the Bay were busily inquiring into their
liberties and privileges.” [Bancroft.] The American spirit, which was
to leaven the world with a new ideal of liberty, found its philosophers
and statesmen in the farms and hamlets of the young and simple
community. It found, of course, its critics and its doubters. Lechford,
a Boston lawyer, prophesied that “elections cannot be safe long here,”
where manhood suffrage was the rule. John Cotton spoke against the
accepted principle of rotation in office; but neither could stem the
current of democratic doctrine, because the early settlers of America
still retained the scars of their recent conflict with the aristocrats
of Europe. Their arrival in the then wilderness of America had been too
recent to obliterate the impression made on their minds by “caste” in
Europe.
In 1635, there was a short-lived possibility that the aristocratic
system of Britain might be transplanted to Massachusetts. Henry Vane,
younger son of a titled English family, emigrated to the colony, where
he was kindly received, and elected governor a few years after; and two
noblemen, Lord Brooke and Lord Say-and-Seal, expressed their intention
to follow him if the colonists would agree to establish a second
chamber of their legislature and constitute them hereditary members of
it. But the burgesses, easily perceiving the trend of such a proposal,
declined it, courteously but decidedly.
Aristocracy never found a foothold in any of the colonies. The only
approach to it was the privileges accorded in some of them to the
“proprietors,” and these were, while they lasted, regarded with some
jealousy. For instance, when Pennsylvania, after Braddock’s defeat at
Fort Duquesne, decided to raise £50,000 for self-defence by an estate
tax, the proprietors--heirs of William Penn--claimed exemption from
the levy; but, though Governor Morris approved the claim, the Assembly
refused it.
Bancroft thus characterizes the elemental beginnings of the American
nation: “Nothing came from Europe but a free people. The people,
separating itself from all other elements of previous civilization;
the people, self-confident and industrious; the people, wise by all
traditions that favored its culture and happiness--alone broke away
from European influence, and in the New World laid the foundations
of our Republic.” And periodically, as we see from the records of
our nation, the might of the majority has been exercised to suppress
anything like the attempted institution of “caste” in our country. This
often-recurring crime begins to upraise its head, slowly at first,
after each defeat, but eventually its growth becomes sufficiently great
to attract the attention of the “Common People,” and, as a result,
receives its punishment, so justly due.
And the same historian adds: “Of the nations of Europe, the chief
emigration was from that Germanic race most famed for the love of
personal independence. The immense majority of American families were
not of ‘the high folk of Normandie,’ but were of ‘the low men,’ who
were Saxons. This is true of New England; it is true of the South.”
It is true of the South, in spite of the fact--influential throughout
the history of that section--that its population contained an element
drawn from the wealthier classes of the mother country. It has indeed
been said that Virginia was “a continuation of English society.”
The seeds of privilege may have existed in the Old Dominion, but,
nevertheless, in no colony was the spirit of personal independence
more signally evinced. “With consistent firmness of character,” to
quote again from Bancroft, “the Virginians welcomed representative
assemblies; displaced an unpopular governor; rebelled against the
politics of the Stuarts; and, uneasy at the royalist principles that
prevailed in their forming aristocracy, soon manifested the tendency of
the age at the polls.”
With the aims of the English rebellion against Charles I., the American
colonies were in full sympathy. Immediately after its outbreak, the
general court of Massachusetts directed the governor to omit the oath
of allegiance to the king, “seeing that he had violated the privileges
of Parliament.” But the civil war had no effect upon the colonial
governments. In England, the monarchy, the peerage, and the prelacy
were at swords’ points with the people; in America, there was neither
peerage nor prelacy, and monarchy was rendered remote by the Atlantic,
so that there were no two parties to join battle.
The Restoration opened a new era in the history of the colonies--a
period of conflict between royal usurpation and aristocratic oppression
on the one hand, and popular liberties on the other; a period that,
after many years of difficulty and struggle, culminated in events that
gave rationality and independence to the greatest democracy the world
has ever seen.
It was a period marked in England by the political ascendency of the
aristocracy. At the Restoration, the nobility resumed possession of
the hereditary branch of the Parliament. Through their influence
over elections, they, to a great extent, controlled the House of
Commons--and through it the crown, over which the Commons had given
recent and striking proofs of power. It was the aristocratic element
that dictated the policy which goaded the colonies into secession from
the mother country. It supplied the office-holders--“carpet-baggers”
they might have been termed in modern political slang--whom the home
government quartered upon the colonials by an official system tainted
with nepotism and corruption. Its foe--Pitt, the great Commoner--was
the friend of America, and one of her few champions in Parliament.
Equally the friend of America was the English democracy--politically
far less powerful during the century after the Restoration than in the
preceding and the subsequent periods. When the hated Stamp Act was
repealed, the “Common People” of London lit bonfires and illuminated
the streets, rang the historic Bow Bells, and decked the shipping in
the Thames with flags.
But the House of Commons, before whom came the critical measures of
legislation for the colonies, reflected the feeling of the aristocracy
and not that of the populace. “The majority,” said a member, during
a debate on American affairs in 1770, “is no better than an ignorant
multitude.” Sir George Saville, a man of rare independence and
integrity, replied in strong words. “The greatest evil that can befall
this nation,” he declared, “is the invasion of the people’s rights by
the authority of this house. I do not say that the members have sold
the rights of their constituents; but I do say, I have said, and I
shall always say, that they have betrayed them.” But his protest was
shouted down as treason, and Parliament blindly pursued its course of
usurpation.
Long before that time, there had been in America thoughts of
independence as a refuge from usurpation. The colonists cherished a
genuine loyalty to the old flag, and a strong pride in the Saxon
blood, whose latest and, indeed, most typical product they themselves
were. Yet, as far back as 1638, when Charles I. tried to revoke
the original patent of Massachusetts, the settlers threatened to
“confederate themselves under a new government for their necessary
safety and subsistence.”
In 1698, Governor Nicholson, of Virginia, reported that “a great many
in the plantations think that no law of England ought to be in force
and binding upon them without their own consent.” Three years later, a
public document noted that “the independence the colonies thirst after
is now notorious.”
The sentiment grew gradually during the reigns of the Georges, slowly
overcoming the strength of the old attachment to the mother country.
Every encroachment attempted by royalty or officialism aroused a
hostility that reinforced the spirit of liberty. For instance, when
Samuel Shute, Governor of Massachusetts in 1719, tried to prevent the
publication of the Assembly’s answer to one of his speeches, claiming
power over the press as his prerogative, he only succeeded in evoking a
vigorous resistance, that finally disposed of his pretension, and gave
the press untrammeled freedom.
And thus it was that a generation later the patriotic Otis, of Boston,
the man “who dared to love his country and be poor,” spoke so boldly
in reply to Hutchinson, who summed up his aristocratic preferences in
the odious Horatian maxim, _Odi profanum vulgus_, and who avowed his
dissatisfaction that “liberty and property should be enjoyed by the
vulgar.”
“God made all men naturally equal,” said Otis. “The ideas of earthly
grandeur are acquired, not innate. No government has a right to make
a slave of the subject.” And again, “to bring the powers of all into
the hands of one or some few, and to make them hereditary, is the
interested work of the weak and wicked.”
Such was the philosophy that was daily preached among the burghers of
Boston. Such was the doctrine that Patrick Henry came from the Virginia
backwoods to voice with his burning eloquence. Such was the spirit that
was everywhere animating the colonies, while Parliament enacted one
unjust and oppressive law after another. “The sun of American liberty
has set,” Ben Franklin wrote from Europe to a friend in America, when
he heard of the enactment of the ill-fated Stamp Act; “now we must
light the torches of industry and economy.” “Be assured that we shall
light torches of another sort,” replied his friend.
The torches were lit; they blazed forth in the shots fired at
Lexington, and on Bunker Hill, and in the Declaration of Independence,
at Philadelphia; and they were not put out until Parliamentary
oppression had been forever ended, and a new nation--a plebeian
democracy--took its place by the side of the proudest of earth’s
empires.
The war was fought and won by the “Common People,” in the face of the
armed force of the foreigner, and the treachery, active or passive,
of not a few colonists, whose aristocratic connections or pretensions
held them aloof from the movement for liberty. Even in the darkest
days of the struggle, when Washington, driven from New York, was
retreating before Howe’s advance, and many men of prominence were
giving up the patriotic cause as hopeless--Joseph Galloway and Andrew
Allen, of Pennsylvania, Samuel Tucker, of New Jersey, John Dickinson,
of Delaware, and others--even then the Commander’s wonderful faith and
courage was reflected in the fidelity of the populace. That alone made
possible the final triumph.
“When the war of independence was terminated,” remarks DeTocqueville,
in his famous study of “Democracy in America,” “and the foundations
of the new government were to be laid down, the nation was divided
between two opinions--two opinions which are as old as the world, and
which are perpetually to be met with under different forms and various
names, in all free communities--the one tending to limit, the other to
extend, indefinitely, the power of the people. The conflict between
these two opinions never assumed that degree of violence in America
which it has frequently displayed elsewhere. Both parties were agreed
on the most essential points, and neither of them had to destroy an
old constitution, or to overthrow the structure of society, in order
to triumph. In neither of them, consequently, were a great number of
private interests affected by success or defeat; but moral principles
of a high order, such as the love of equality and of independence,
were concerned in the struggle, and these sufficed to kindle violent
passions.”
The party that sought to limit the power of the people was that of
the Federalists; its opponents took the name of Republican, which
afterwards became Democratic-Republican, and finally, under Andrew
Jackson, Democratic. In view of the fixed bent of the American national
character, it is not difficult to discern the inevitable result of the
conflict between them. The Federalists were certain to be ultimately
overcome. America is the land of democracy, and the anti-democratic
partisans were always in a minority.
Thus for the brief period succeeding the Civil War, while the wounds
of the conflict were still fresh upon the body politic, the party of
the aristocracy--for such had the Republican party become--utilizing
the soreness still existing as the result of the conflict, succeeded,
by the clamor of sectionalism, in diverting the attention of the masses
from the tendency towards social superiority and “caste,” which the
continuance of the Republican party in power was creating.
This brief ascendency during the first twelve years of the republic
was due to several temporary causes. Most of the great leaders of the
war for independence believed in a strong, centralized government,
and therefore ranked themselves with the Federalists. The failure of
the first attempt at federal control--the Continental Congress--and
the local disorders that arose after the war, had inspired the people
with a dread of anarchy. They were willing to accept, for a time,
restrictive political theories, which it soon became safe to throw off.
The Federalist leaders were more than suspected of aristocratic
tendencies. Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, declared in the
Constitutional Convention of 1787, that “the ills of the country come
from an excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue,” he added,
as if in apology, “but are the dupes of pretended patriots.”
Sherman, of Connecticut, said at the same time and place that “the
people should have as little to do directly with the government as
possible.”
John Adams repeatedly advocated, in his writings “a liberal use of
titles and ceremonials for those in office,” and the establishment
of an upper legislative chamber to be filled by “the rich, the
well-born, and the able.” The words, “well-born,” gave intense offence.
Their inconsistency with the grand democracy of the Declaration of
Independence was bitterly commented on. The whole Federalist party was
sarcastically called “the well-born”--a fatal appellation!
The expression “well-bred,” as describing the commander of the
Pennsylvania militia at Homestead, will be recalled by the mass of the
people long after every vestige of the militia’s visit to Homestead
has departed. To the American mind such expressions as “well-born” and
“well-bred” present an absurd attempt at class distinction.
Hamilton shared the same theories. He was openly accused by Jefferson,
while both men were members of Washington’s cabinet, of a desire to
overthrow the republic. He was closely connected with the rising
financial power of New York. The people, while they admired his able
and amiable personality, never quite forgave him for the part he took
in defending one Holt, a rich Tory of New York, in a suit for redress
brought by a poor widow whose house he had seized during the British
occupation.
George Washington himself, who was a Federalist so far as he belonged
to any party, was a man of ceremony and _hauteur_. He never forgot that
he had descended from a titled English family, and belonged to the
wealthiest class of Southern landed proprietors. When he assumed the
Presidency, he established an almost courtly etiquette. On Tuesdays
and Fridays he gave stately receptions to visitors; on Thursdays,
Congressional dinners. While New York was the Capital of the Union,
he had a Presidential box at the theatre (the only theatre the city
then boasted), elaborately decorated, and whenever he occupied it,
the orchestra played the “Presidential March” (now known as “Hail
Columbia”).
At his inauguration, the House of Representatives addressed him simply
as “President.” The Senate, probably cognizant of his personal wishes,
sought a more high-sounding title. “His Excellency” was rejected as too
plain, and after some debate the Senators decided upon “His Highness,
the President of the United States, and Protector of their Liberties.”
The Senate’s suggestion was referred to the House, where it aroused no
little opposition. Congressman Tucker, of South Carolina, inquired:
“Will it not alarm our fellow-citizens? Will they not say that they
have been deceived by the Convention that framed the Constitution? One
of its warmest advocates--nay, one of its framers--has recommended it
by calling it a pure democracy. Does giving titles look like a pure
democracy? Surely not. Some one has said that to give dignity to our
government we must give a lofty title to our chief magistrate. If so,
then to make our dignity complete, we must give first a high title,
then an embroidered robe, then a princely equipage, and finally a crown
and hereditary succession. This spirit of imitation, sir, this spirit
of mimicry and apery, will be the ruin of our country. Instead of
giving us dignity in the eyes of foreigners, it will expose us to be
laughed at as apes.”
So decided was the feeling of the House against the adoption of a
sonorous title for the chief executive, that the Senate’s proposal was
dropped. Nevertheless, a more elaborate ceremonial was maintained at
the Presidential mansion--at first in New York, then in Philadelphia,
and finally at Washington--during the first twelve years of the
government, than after Jefferson’s accession in 1801.
Washington’s two elections to the Presidency was the nation’s tribute
to the splendid personal character and military record of the man
who, above all others, gave it nationality. When he refused a third
election, the honor went to John Adams, as his political heir, although
the Federalists, whose candidate Adams was, had only a bare majority
of the electoral college--seventy-one votes against sixty-eight for
Jefferson. It was at that time the almost invariable rule for the
electors to be chosen by the State Legislatures, not, as now, by
a popular vote. Had the conflict between Adams and Jefferson been
waged before the people at large, it is probable that the latter, the
champion of advanced democracy, would have been successful.
John Adams was a man of decided aristocratic tendencies. He was the
first American minister to England, and had spent ten years at the
courts of Europe. He did not conceal his admiration for English
institutions. While in London he wrote a “Defence of the American
Constitution,” which proved to be a laudation of the British form of
government rather than that of the United States. In his “Discourses
on Davilla,” he advocated a powerful centralized executive and a
system of titles. He was frequently charged with favoring a monarchy
and a hereditary legislature like the House of Lords. His political
opponents nicknamed him “the Duke of Braintree”--Braintree being the
Massachusetts town where he lived.
Thus early in the existence of the nation was evident the detestation
on the part of the people at any attempted introduction of “caste” in
the country. The Stamp Act, and taxes, and unjust discrimination while
truly expressed caused the revolution in 1776, were only supplemental
causes. In the record of every colony will be found traces of the
opposition to “caste,” and the strong objection that existed among the
people to the introduction of class distinctions among them. While
the immediate cause of the rebellion on the part of the colonies,
the revolution, and consequent creation of a nation, may appear to
be the resistance to the imposition of taxes and therefore a matter
of pocketbook; still, beneath it all, the foundation upon which
the strength and duration of the resistance to the British power
rested, was the strong sentiment in the hearts of the early patriots,
demanding _equality_, social as well as “equality before the law.” Our
forefathers endured suffering at Valley Forge, not for the sake of the
pocketbook, but because they had in their bosoms that ever-present
sentiment of the Anglo-Saxon people, that all must be equal in every
respect. It is rather a petty cause to assign for the revolution and
the exhibition of heroism upon the part of the forefathers of the
Americans--a matter of taxes.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Feudalism, introduced in France a thousand years ago, reconstructed
society on the only basis then possible. It was a bridge from barbarism
to monarchy. The invasion of the Northmen, though apparently a
calamity, was a blessing. They brought fresh, lusty life. Their courage
and vigor gave the country a new and needed impulse in progress and
civilization.
William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, and proved an
able and stern ruler.
While many of her nobles were engaged in the Crusades in the East, a
social revolution was going on in France, full of significance. This
was the rise of free cities. The feudal bishops became so intolerably
oppressive that the people succeeded in buying the privilege of
electing their own magistrates; then the king, for a goodly sum of
money, confirmed it. Appeal was thus secured from the bishop to the
king. He encouraged the practice, for it freed him, to a degree, from
dependence on his nobles, and gave him greater control over the
cities. The process went on during the eleventh, twelfth, and the first
part of the thirteenth century.
The result was shown at the battle of Bouvines (A.D. 1214). King John
of England, in the hope of recovering Normandy and other provinces
which he had ignominiously lost, attacked France. He formed an alliance
with the German emperor and with the Court of Flanders.
The army of Philip, the French king, made up of barons, bishops, and
knights, clad in steel, and a large body of foot-soldiers sent by
sixteen free cities and towns, gained a complete victory. It was one of
the most memorable contests of the Middle Ages, for on that hard-fought
field three great branches of the Teutonic race--German, Flemish, and
English--went down before the furious onset of “hostile blood and
speech.” Lords, clergy, and Common People fought side by side against a
foreign foe, and henceforth were united by a common bond of pride. It
was the hardy yeomanry of Edward, the Black Prince, who won the battle
of Crecy (1346), at the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, against
three times as many Frenchmen.
It was in 1598 that Henry IV. issued the Edict of Nantes, which
secured to the long and bitterly persecuted Huguenots the rights they
demanded. It marked a new era in history. It was the first formal
recognition of toleration in religion made by any leading power of
Europe, and anticipated a similar act in England by nearly a century.
The king saw what all have since come to see, that freedom of
conscience is one of the surest guarantees of national strength.
Henry IV. of France was essentially the people’s king. He was popular
with the masses to the same extent that Louis XV. was unpopular. To
the Common People in France, Henry IV. represented as much democracy
in that age of tyranny as Abraham Lincoln and Grover Cleveland do in a
better age and country. Henry was murdered on the streets of Paris by
the fanatic Ravaillac, whose dagger inflicted an almost mortal wound
upon France herself.
With the aid of Richelieu, the absolute power of the crown was built
up; then followed the despotisms of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.; the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes; the disastrous failure of the
Mississippi Scheme; the struggle between England and France for mastery
in the New World, and the complete triumph of the former, and the
preparation for the awful revolution of 1789.
France had materially and powerfully assisted the American colonies in
their struggle with Great Britain for independence. Many illustrious
sons of France, like Lafayette and Rochambeau, had joined and fought
side by side with those sons of liberty who were then creating the
great republic of America. America was a storehouse of freedom,
liberty, and concentrated hate of “caste” and class distinction,
from whence Frenchmen like Lafayette carried to France the spirit of
freedom. It may fairly be said that the struggle on this continent
lighted the torch of liberty which has illuminated the world since,
torn Spain’s oppressed colonies in America from her grasp, and made
possible the existence of the French Republic, which has now taken its
place among the most powerful nations of the earth.
The dormant desire had long been present in the breasts of the
poor of the French nation for equality and liberty. The quickening
influences and light radiating from the new Republic of the West,
among whose children the sons of France had served in the struggle for
independence, soon ignited the fires in the heart of the impetuous
Frenchman.
Louis XVI. had been more condescending than any of his predecessors;
he occupied, possibly, a higher position in the hearts of the people
than any king the French had had since Henry IV. But the time had come
when, inspired by the example of the Americans, the crime of “caste”
in France had become unendurable. Louis XVI. was, of all the Bourbon
kings, probably the least objectionable.
His character, while weak and influenced by the stronger will of Marie
Antoinette, did not represent the worst phases of the character of
Louis XV. or Louis XIV. Gradually, but irresistibly by attrition, the
will of the people had been making marks upon the royalty of France.
The tyranny, insolence, and arrogance of Louis XIV., in whose presence
one dared not speak, had been lessened in Louis XV. to the extent that
one could speak in a whisper; but in the presence of Louis XVI. one
might speak aloud. With tireless, resistless, sullen determination the
billows of the sea of humanity, wherein all is equality and fraternity,
had beaten upon this rock of adamant until these divine Bourbon kings
had become impressed by its constant, ceaseless energy.
Weak, amiable, and pliable as Louis XVI. was, poor Jacques had been
so long deprived of one heart-beat of feeling that his bosom could no
longer restrain the emotions of liberty and equality. The nobles of
France, more than Louis XVI., retained the impress of the reign of
Louis XIV., “the Glorious” (?), who had proclaimed that he was a Sun;
and while the ruling monarch, as the bulwark of royalty, “caste,” and
social inequality, had received the first shock of the wave and been
marked thereby; still the nobility, sheltered behind the bulwark of
the personality of the king, continued to indulge the wild license of
their privileges and “caste” distinction, gamboling like lambs upon
the greensward of their delusion, becoming fattened for the knife of
that butcher that was sure to follow, the guillotine. A more powerful,
touching, and realistic picture was never drawn of the arrogance and
presumption of the nobles, privileged classes, “higher caste,” than
that made by the people’s author, the man who of all others has nearer
touched the hearts of the Common People, who will be loved and revered
when others more learned may be forgotten, because he wrote of scenes
of sensation, emotion, and relations of the Common People--Charles
Dickens--in the “Tale of Two Cities,” and for our purpose it would be
impossible to find words more fitting than those used by this master
delineator of the feelings, thoughts, heart-throbs, and wrongs of the
Common People:
“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. A tall
man in a night-cap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of
the horses and had laid it on the base of the fountain, and was
down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.
“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man,
“it is a child.”
“Why does he make that abominable noise--is it his child?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis, it is a pity--yes.”
The fountain was a little removed, for the street opened where it
was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man
suddenly got up from the ground and came running at the carriage,
Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his
sword-hilt.
“Killed!” shrieked the man in wild desperation, extending both
arms at their lengths above his head and staring at him. “Dead!”
The people closed round and looked at Monsieur the Marquis.
There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him
but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing of
anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry,
they had been silent, and remained so. The voice of the submissive
man who had spoken was flat and tame in its extreme submission.
Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all as though they had
been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse.
“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take
care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is
forever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done to my
horses. See! give him that.”
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the
heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down as it fell.
The tall man called out again, with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!”
He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the
rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his
shoulder, sobbing and crying and pointing to the fountain, where
some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving
gently about it. They were silent, however, as the men.
“I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave man,
my Gaspard. It is better for the poor little plaything to die so,
than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have
lived an hour as happily?”
“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling.
“How do they call you?”
“They call me Defarge.”
“Of what trade?”
“Monsieur the Marquis, the vender of wine.”
“Pick up that, philosopher and vender of wine,” said the Marquis,
throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you will. The
horses there; are they all right?”
Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur
the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven
away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broken some
common thing, and had paid for it and could afford to pay for it,
when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into the
carriage, and ringing on its floor.
“Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! who threw
that?”
He looked to the spot where Defarge, the vender of wine, had stood
a moment before; but the wretched father was groveling on his face
on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him
was the figure of a dark, stout woman, knitting.
“You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged
front, except as to the spots on his nose; “I would ride over any
of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I
knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were
sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels.”
So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their
experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and
beyond it, that not a voice or a hand, or even an eye was raised.
Among the men not one. But the woman who was knitting looked up
steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his
dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her and
over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and
gave the word, “Go on!”
In vain would we seek for words describing better the horrible
condition of the Common People, and the tremendous extent of the
assumption of a superiority upon the part of the nobles, than in
the foregoing picture so ably portrayed by Charles Dickens. Such a
condition of the social life in France could produce but one result.
The harvest was ripe for the sickle. The people had witnessed an
illustration of the might of the Common People of America when opposed
to the representatives of “caste” in the British army. That the storm
should have burst that so long had been hovering over the heads of
the French nobles is not a matter of surprise, in view of the fact
that Dickens is historically correct in his picture of the oppressed
condition of the poor in France. The only wonder to us Anglo-Saxons is
that brave men, as the Frenchmen are, should have borne so long the
cruel, heartless oppression of the rich nobility.
Duruy says: “The French Revolution was the establishment of a new order
of society, founded on justice, not privileges. Such changes never take
place without causing terrible suffering. It is the law of humanity
that all new life shall be born in pain.”
When Louis XVI. ascended the throne, in 1774, revolution was in the
air. The outward splendor of Versailles, as Carlyle intimates, was the
rainbow above Niagara: beneath was destruction.
There was a general feeling that a crisis was at hand. The spirit of
free inquiry aroused by the leading writers and thinkers was ominous.
Government, religion, social institutions, were all burned in the
crucible, and a new order of things was inevitable. The country was
hopelessly deep in the mire of debt; the tax agents were brutal, and
the peasants ground to the lowest depths of misery and suffering.
The power of the nobles over the peasants living on their estates was
absolute. Large tracts of land were declared game-preserves, where wild
boars and deer roamed at pleasure. To preserve the game with its flavor
unimpaired, the starving peasants were not allowed to weed their little
plots of ground. The nobility and clergy, who owned two-thirds of the
land, were nearly exempt from taxation.
The peasant must grind his corn at the lord’s mill; bake his bread
in the lord’s oven, and press his grapes at the lord’s wine-press,
paying whatever the lord chose to charge. If the wife of the seigneur
fell ill, the peasants must beat the neighboring marshes all night to
prevent the frogs from croaking, and so disturbing the lady’s rest.
French agriculture had not advanced beyond the tenth century, and the
plow in use was the same as that used before the Christian era. The
picture of rural wretchedness is completed by the purchase and sale of
150,000 serfs with the land on which they were born.
Louis desired to redress the wrongs of his country, but did not know
how. Ministers came and went in a continuous procession, Turgot,
Necker, Colonne, Brienne, and Necker again, tried to solve the problem,
and gave up in despair.
As a last resort, the States-General, which had not met for one hundred
and seventy-five years, assembled May 5, 1789, and that day marked the
opening of the Revolution.
The National Assembly, proving to be the most powerful body of the
States-General, invited the nobles and clergy to join it, and declared
itself the National Assembly. Louis closed the hall. The members
repaired to a tennis-court near by, and swore not to separate until
they had given France a constitution. The weak king soon yielded, and,
at his request, the coronets and mitres met with the commons. The
court decided to overawe the refractory Assembly, and collected 30,000
soldiers about Versailles.
Four members of that assembly were Lafayette, Count Mirabeau,
Robespierre, and Guillotine, inventor of the fearful instrument of
punishment bearing his name.
The Paris populace were infuriated by the menace from the soldiers.
They stormed the old Bastile and razed its dungeons to the ground.
The insurrection spread like a prairie-fire. Chateaux were burned,
and tax-payers tortured to death. Soon a maddened mob surged toward
Versailles, screeching “Bread! bread!” The palace was sacked and the
royal family brought to Paris.
Political clubs sprang up like mushrooms, chief among which were the
Jacobins and the Cordelies, whose leaders, Robespierre, Marat, and
Danton, advocated sedition and organized the revolution.
The Assembly, in its burst of patriotism, extinguished feudal
privileges, abolished serfdom, and equalized taxes. The estates of the
clergy were confiscated, and upon this security notes were issued to
meet the expenses of the government.
Austria and Prussia took up arms in behalf of Louis, and invaded
France (1791). This step doomed the monarch and the monarchy. The
approach of the “foreigners” kindled to unrestrainable fury the wrath
of the masses. The “Marseillaise” was heard for the first time on the
streets of Paris; the palace of the Tuileries was sacked; the faithful
Swiss guards were slain, and Louis sent to prison. The Jacobins were
triumphant. They arrested all who spoke against their revolutionary
projects; assassins were hired to go through the crowded prisons
and murder the inmates. For four days during September the terrible
carnival of blood raged.
The Prussian army was checked at Valmy, and soon recrossed the
frontier. Then the Austrians were defeated at Jemmapes, and Belgium
was proclaimed a republic. The leaders of the French revolution were
electrified, and the next Assembly established a republic in France.
The king was arraigned and guillotined. As the bleeding head tumbled
into the basket the furious crowds shouted “_Vive la Republique!_”
Europe was horrified, and a league, with England as its moving spirit,
was formed to avenge the death of Louis. The royalists held Marseilles,
Bordeaux, Lyons and Toulon.
The Convention appointed a Committee of Safety, which knew neither
mercy nor pity. Revolutionary tribunals were set up, and the work
of slaughter began and raged with a ferocity beyond the power of
imagination to conceive. To charge a person with being in sympathy
with the aristocrats was his death warrant. Men saved themselves by
denouncing their neighbors before their neighbors could denounce them.
Intimate friends suspected each other, and members of the same family
became mortal enemies.
Marie Antoinette, her head silvered by the awful woe and desolation
and horror, perished on the same scaffold where her husband had died.
At Lyons, the guillotine was too slow, and the victims were mowed down
with grape-shot; at Nantes, boat-loads were rowed out and sunk in the
Loire. The people were made frantic by their thirst for blood.
Marat rubbed his hands and chuckled with glee at the carnival of
murder. He showed his admiring friends his reception room, papered with
death warrants.
But his turn speedily came. Charlotte Corday, a young girl from
Normandy, gained access to him, and, while he was jotting down the
names of fresh victims, stabbed him to death, and then walked proudly
to the guillotine.
Danton expressed a suspicion that the massacre had continued long
enough, for which he was promptly guillotined, and then for nearly
four months the appalling Robespierre reigned supreme. His aim was
to destroy all the other leaders; the axe worked faster and faster,
but not fast enough to suit the clamoring tigers; the accused were
forbidden defence, and were tried _en masse_.
Finally, when common safety demanded it, friends and foes united for
the overthrow of the colossal monster. He was arrested and beheaded
July 28, 1794. The reign of terror ended with his life. It had lasted
little more than a year. But what a year of woe, massacre, murder, and
blood! From the first outbreak of the revolution to its close, it has
been estimated that 1,000,000 lives were sacrificed.
From this appalling furnace of fire and death emerged the true life of
France. The revolutionary clubs were abolished; the prison doors flung
wide; the churches opened, and the emigrant priests and nobles invited
to return.
But, though the Convention had organized the government of the
Directory in name, it had yet to fight for its existence. The Royalists
hoped they might restore the monarchy. The National Guard was persuaded
to join the monarchical party. In October, 1795, the combined forces,
40,000 strong, marched on the Tuileries to expel the Convention or
prevent the establishment of the Directory.
The Convention called on General Barras to defend them. Barras asked
a Corsican artillery officer of twenty-six, who had distinguished
himself at Toulon, to act as his lieutenant. He speedily converted the
palace into an intrenched camp. He had 7000 troops, but he planted his
batteries with such admirable skill, and used his grape-shot with such
effect that the advancing hosts were defeated and scattered, and the
Convention, with its defender, Napoleon Bonaparte, was master of the
situation.
Thankfulness should fill the hearts of all the citizens of the
American Republic that the history of our own country will not
present a duplicate picture of the scenes portrayed in this chapter.
It certainly is not the fault of the good management of the sham
aristocrats that these scenes of such monstrous horror, exhibiting the
birth of liberty in France and the erasure of the word “caste” with
its most objectionable features from French life, were not reproduced
in America. Fortunately for the would-be aristocrats, the volcano,
upon which they slept, had a crater known as the BALLOT-BOX, where
the pent-up steam of the indignation of the people found a vent-hole.
November 8, 1892, the safety-valve was opened by the people, and the
believers in “caste” should be thankful that there existed some means
of relief; had such not been the case, the pent-up energies and the
indignation of the people would have caused another explosion, which
would have rivalled in force, if not in the howling scenes of blood,
the French Revolution.
CHAPTER XV.
ENGLAND, 1645.
The American regards England with more than kindly eyes. Her history
has been the history of our race. The sterling valor of the Englishman
early made itself felt in the demands made by him upon the reluctant
kings who ruled him. At no time in the history of Great Britain,
from the Norman Conquest, had the peasantry and “Common People” been
submerged as completely by the power of the privileged classes as has
been the case in France, and, in fact, as in all of continental Europe.
When John, known as “Lackland,” the younger brother of Richard Cœur
de Lion, came to the throne of England (1109-1216), he ruled weakly
and lost nearly all the English possessions in France. The peasants
rose against the imbecile monarch and, joined by the barons and feudal
lords, compelled him to sign the Magna-Charta or Great Charter, at
Runnymede (1215).
By this immortal instrument the king gave up the right to demand money
when he pleased, to imprison or punish when he pleased. He was to take
money only when the barons granted the privilege, for public purposes,
and no freeman was to be punished except when his countrymen judged him
guilty of crime. The courts were to be open to all, and justice was
not to be sold, refused, or withheld. The serf villein was to have his
plow free from seizure. The church was secured against the interference
of the king. No class was neglected, but each obtained some cherished
right.
Thus, early in the history of England, we find the “Common People” of
that nation from whom we derive our blood and many of our laws--the
foundation, in fact of all of them--and much of our domestic and
social conditions and manners, asserting rights for which Americans
afterwards contended with the parent country, England. The Magna-Charta
was wrested from King John not by the lords and barons alone--but by a
union between the nobles and the “Common People.”
Thus early the “Common People” of England learned to appreciate their
might and strength. And the Americans, as inheritors along with their
blood of so many of the traditions and characteristics of the English,
have not failed to possess themselves of that quality which is inherent
in the Anglo-Saxon heart--the fearless demanding of the right to
equality.
Pronouncedly did the American people, November 8, 1892, reiterate in an
unmistakable manner the sentiment of the race who, in 1214, had forced
from King John of England the Magna-Charta which has been, ever since,
the foundation of English liberty.
English kings have continually tried to break the Magna-Charta, but
have ever failed in the attempt. They have been compelled, during
reigns succeeding that of King John, to confirm its provisions
thirty-six times. The early assertion of the right to representation
by the people is interesting as a step onward in the march of the
Anglo-Saxon toward equality and liberty.
Henry II.’s foolish favoritism to foreigners caused a revolt, under the
leadership of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who defeated the
king at Lewes. Earl Simon thereupon called together the Parliament,
summoning, besides the barons, two knights from each county and two
citizens from each city or borough to represent free-holders (1265).
From this beginning, the English Parliament soon took on the form it
has since retained of two assemblies--the House of Lords and the House
of Commons. Thus, the thirteenth century became ever memorable in the
history of the English-speaking people of the world, for the granting
of the Magna-Charta and the forming of the House of Commons--that House
of Commons, which, as its name indicates, was and is made up of the
representatives of the “Common People,” and which has ever been the
bulwark of the liberty of the “Common People” of England, resisting
every attack of autocratic monarchs upon the rights of the people.
In the reign of Edward III. (1327-1377) the Normans and Saxons were
fused completely, and created the English nationality; chivalry
reached its highest exaltation; but the court and the upper classes
were morally rotten. The laboring classes rose during this reign, and
compelled their employers to pay them just wages, and rent to fragments
the despotic edicts that effected them; just as the “Common People”
will ever do, whether the attempt is made to beguile them by the cry of
Protection, Free Trade, Force Bill, or other distracting exclamations.
Richard II. (1377-1399) was a tyrant, with neither the capacity nor
courage of his father and grandfather. He lost all the respect and
admiration with which the people of England had ever regarded his
father and grandfather. One of Richard II.’s tax-gatherers insulted
the daughter of one Watt Tyler, at Dartforth on Kent, in exactly the
same manner as “Chappie” feels at liberty to do, by his glances, the
daughters of the laboring men to-day. Watt Tyler, the wrathful father,
killed the man with one blow, and a formidable revolt sprang at once
into being.
The shouts of about 100,000 “Common People,” gathered on Black Heath,
June 12, 1381, reverberated through the valley of Richard II. The vast
horde poured into London, seized the Tower of London, put to death
the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, and spared the cowering and
cowardly King Richard II., only on his promise to abolish slavery and
grant their demands.
That, my good and would-be lords and barons, is but another evidence
of the Anglo-Saxon blood and its resentment of insult when offered to
the female members of the race. Women ever have occasioned, in the
Anglo-Saxon bosom, just and righteous indignation when insulted. The
slights, sneers, and snubbing of the women of America by the snobs
and sham aristocrats produced the reappearance of the same traits
of character as led Watt Tyler and his horde of peasants to London.
The women of America had become Democratic, and the result of their
influence upon the voters of our country was revealed, November 8th, in
an unmistakable manner.
James I. (1603-1625), the first Stuart to reign in England, was
stubborn, conceited, weak, slovenly, dissipated, and cowardly. In
his reign was first heard the prattle about “the divine right of
kings, and the passive obedience of the subject.” He ostentatiously
opposed his will to that of the people, and during his reign was in
constant conflict with Parliament. He was obliged to beg the House of
Commons for money, and that body adopted the principle, now one of the
cornerstones of the British Constitution, that “a redress of grievances
must precede a granting of supplies.”
Charles I. (1625-1649), the son of James I., was more refined and
held more exalted ideas of his prerogatives; he repeatedly broke his
promises made to the people; his reign was one long struggle with
Parliament.
He was not as frivolous and false as his son Charles II., but James
I., his father, had brought the idiotic doctrine of the divine right
of kings into England along with the rest of his peculiar Stuart
eccentricities,--for eccentric it was to the Anglo-Saxon people,
who had forced from John the Magna-Charta at Runnymede before the
amalgamation of the Norman and Saxon into one homogeneous race had been
completed; who, while there still existed internal dissensions and race
distinction, had been united upon the one great subject for which the
Anglo-Saxon people, best and bravest representatives of the Aryan race,
have ever fought--the equality of man in the representation in the
legislation of the people.
Strange to the ear of the masses was the doctrine of the Stuart, that
the king was one of the Lord’s anointed and could do no wrong. They
had seen kings do wrong when cursed with a wrong-doer as king, and
supported any aspirant to the crown of England, no matter how slender
may have been the thread of his claim thereto. Richard II. had played
the autocratic ruler. Englishmen had resisted by espousing the cause of
the first claimant who appeared upon the field. The assumption by the
Stuarts of a divine right was the first stab that they gave to their
own existence as the ruling House of an Anglo-Saxon people. Charles I.
reaped where James I. had sown. The English people had forgiven before
the bad faith of their sovereign, as they have since. They have endured
the waste of their money because the Anglo-Saxon, whence we Americans
derive the source of blood and laws, has not his tender spot upon the
pocketbook, but in his heart, his home, his pride, believing himself,
each man, equal to any other man.
In 1628, Parliament wrested from Charles I. the famous Petition of
Rights, the second great charter of English liberty. It forbade the
kings to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament, to imprison a
subject without trial, or to billet soldiers in private houses. As
usual, Charles disregarded his promises, and then for eleven years
ruled like an autocrat.
During that period no Parliament was convoked, a thing unparalleled
in English history. Buckingham having been assassinated by a Puritan
fanatic, the Earl of Stafford and Archbishop Laud became its royal
advisers. The Earl contrived a plan for making the king absolute. All
who differed from Laud were tried in the High Commissioner’s Court,
while the Star Chamber Court fined, whipped, and imprisoned those
who spoke ill of the king’s policy or refused to pay the money he
illegally demanded. The bitter persecution of the Puritans drove them
to America. In Scotland, Charles carried matters with a high hand.
Laud attempted to abolish Presbyterianism and introduce a liturgy. The
Scotch rose _en masse_, and signed (some of them with their own blood)
a covenant binding themselves to resist every innovation directed
against their religious rights. Finally, an army of Scots crossed the
border into England, and Charles was forced to assemble the famous
“Long Parliament” (1640), which lasted twenty years. The old battle
was renewed. Stafford, and afterward Laud, were brought to the block;
the Star Chamber and High Commissioners’ Courts were abolished, and
Parliament voted that it could not be adjourned without its own
consent. Charles attempted to arrest five of the leaders of Parliament
in the House of Commons itself. They hid in the City of London, whence
a week later they were brought back to the House of Commons in
triumph. Charles hastened Northward, and unfurled the royal banner. For
a time his supporters swept everything before them.
Then arose Oliver Cromwell, a man of the “Common People,” who, with
his Ironsides regiment at Marston Moor (1644), drove the cavaliers
pell-mell from the field. Nasby (1645) was the decisive contest of the
war. Cromwell swept the field, and the royal cause was irrevocably
lost. Charles fled to the Scots, who gave him up to the Parliament; but
the army of the “Common People,” led by Cromwell, soon got him into its
possession, and he was condemned to death on the charge of treason, and
was beheaded.
Thus, as has ever been the case when the “Common People” have been
goaded by insult into a furious state of temper, some leader has aptly
sprung, like Cromwell, from their ranks, and carried them triumphantly
to victory. In the same way George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew
Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Grover Cleveland have each in turn led
the hosts of the “Common People” to victory in their battles against
“divine rights,” injustice, “caste,” and “sham aristocracy.”
England, by the execution of Charles I., was without a king. The
authority was vested in the House of Commons (diminished by Pride’s
Purge the expulsion of the Presbyterian minister) contemptuously styled
“the Rump.” Cromwell, the man of the “Common People,” and his terrible
army, composed of the “Common People,” were the actual rulers. In
Ireland and Scotland the Prince of Wales was proclaimed as Charles II.,
whereupon the grim Ironsides--those representatives of the people, and
their terrific earnestness when aroused--conquered Ireland as it never
was conquered before. Crossing then to Scotland, the covenanters were
routed at Dunbar, and again at Worcester.
Cromwell, while he had the power of a king, like Cæsar, dared not
take the title. He recognized, what it would be well for the sham
aristocrats to attentively regard, that the people MAKE and UNMAKE;
hence, he did not dare offend the “Common People” by assuming the title
of king, though exercising all the powers of a king. Under Cromwell,
England’s glory became greater than under Elizabeth. The Barbarian
pirates were punished; Jamaica was captured; Dunkirk was received from
France in return for help against Spain; protecting the Protestants
everywhere, Cromwell compelled the Duke of Savoy to cease persecuting
the Baudois. The very name of England became terrible to the oppressor
of the poor in every land. The people, in their might, were ruling
England; because, even though Cromwell was styled “Lord Protector of
the Commonwealth,” he still understood that his greatest power rested
upon the will of the “Common People” as a foundation.
Upon the death of Oliver Cromwell there was no hand strong enough to
seize the helm of the ship of State. His son Richard, who did not
inherit the genius of his father, and did not hold the confidence of
the “Common People” of England, was quickly put aside. And the English
people--the “Common People”--casting about for an executive to place
at the head of the nation, selected Charles II., whom they called to
England to rule them, but not “by divine right;” simply as their king.
The popularity of Charles II., the most profligate, the most licentious
and immoral ruler that Great Britain has ever had, arose because he was
the people’s king. They had called him from over the sea; he ruled by
no divine right, but through the affections of the people. He was to
them _their_ king, and though he sinned, erred, and wasted the money of
the nation, he was _of_ the people, and they forgave him. When James
II. attempted to revive (as the people feared he would, and hated him
in consequence, even before his succeeding Charles II.) “the divine
right of kings,” and the privilege of doing anything, the idea that
nothing that he did could be wrong, the people resented it. It was not
Catholicism. Dear as religion may be in the heart of man, there is one
thought that is dearer: it is his right to be a man, and equal to any
other. Had James II. been a people’s man, as was Charles, his brother,
it is quite possible that the House of Stuart might now reign in Great
Britain. William of Orange was beloved by the people, because he was so
thoroughly a people’s man, that even the proud Anglo-Saxons preferred
to submit themselves to his rule, joined with a daughter of the House
of Stuart, rather than to the legitimate successor of Charles II. The
mighty voice of the people was heard resounding in the selection of
the Prince of Orange with the same notes that marked the music of the
march of a triumphant Democracy, on November 8, 1892; like the grains
of wheat taken from the tombs of the Pharaohs, though gathered in a
harvest of fifty centuries ago, when planted will produce the same crop
as to-day.
History repeats itself continually, and nowhere more obvious is the
repetition than in the record of the Anglo-Saxon race. The same causes
which occasioned the unpopularity of Charles I., the popularity of
Cromwell, the popularity of Charles II., were working to create
Cleveland’s tremendous popularity and the overthrow of the Republican
party November 8, 1892.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1520-1525.
Germany does not present a fruitful field for examples of popular
uprisings and the exhibition of the indignation of the people when
crushed by the oppressors of the upper classes. Germany to-day, even
in the last decade of the nineteenth century, presents a picture of
the only government in Europe which pretends to have a representative
form of government, where the chief executive, the Emperor, can speak
of himself, or would dare to do so, as the “war lord,” to whom absolute
obedience is due by the citizens of the Empire. The Anglo-Saxons,
while a branch of the great Teutonic race, seem to have acquired, by
their being transplanted to the British Isles, a greater spirit of
independence than the other branches of the German race that have
remained on the continent of Europe.
Otho I., son of Henry I., the mighty Saxon duke, was the founder of
the German empire (936-973), and remorselessly crushed the rising
opposition of the princely aristocracy. Mutterings of discontent,
ominous of coming revolution, began to be heard throughout the whole
of South and Central Germany, in the early years of the seventeenth
century. The social position of the peasants was of the most degrading
character. They were serfs; or, in other words, belonged to the soil on
which they were born, and through that to the lord who owned the soil.
The miserable peasants had no right to move from these lands; there was
no appeal from the authority of the lord. When he appropriated for his
own use the common pasture grounds of the village; when he forbade them
to fish in the streams, or to hunt in the woods; increased the ground
rent; tithe socage service, according to his own need, they had to
submit or revolt.
Thomas Münzer was an earnest, advanced preacher at Zwichfau, in Saxony,
in 1520 and in 1523. He was expelled from Allstadt by the government,
and went first to Nuremberg, and then to Schaffhausen, returning
soon to Thüringia, and settled at Mülhausen. There he succeeded
in overthrowing the city council and appointing another which was
completely under his control.
Götz von Berlichingen was a famous German knight, surnamed “The Iron
Hand.” He was born in 1480, at Berlichingen Castle, in Wurtemberg. He
lost a hand at the siege of Land Shut, and replaced it with an iron
one. He was a daring and turbulent subject, continually involved in
feuds with neighboring barons.
Thomas Münzer and Götz von Berlichingen were the only leaders who took
part in what is known as “The Peasants’ War,” in Germany. This was
an uprising of the peasants, which first manifested itself January
1, 1525, by the capture and looting of the convent of Kempton. This
served as a signal for general uprising of the peasantry from the Alps
to Havz, and from the Rhine to the Bohemian frontier. Münzer quickly
persuaded the whole population in and around Mühausen and Laugensalza
to rise in revolt, and Götz von Berlichingen hastened to place his
skill at the service of the infuriated peasants.
Unfortunately, however, the uproarious hordes were without other
leadership, and lacked discipline and effective weapons. They gathered
in throngs of from 5,000 to 10,000, and ran hither and thither, with
clubs, stones, and perhaps a few firearms, burning castles, destroying
monasteries, plundering villages, towns, and cities, and committing
ferocious outrages. Before the regular armies, these multitudes were
scattered like chaff in the hurricane. They fought with the fury and
courage of tigers, but it availed them nothing; they were routed,
dispersed, and massacred, and effectually crushed in a few months.
Münzer was tortured and beheaded. Von Berlichingen was placed under
the ban of the empire by Maximilian I., his exploits serving as the
subject of Goethe’s drama of “Götz von Berlichingen.”
While unsuccessful, this uprising of the peasants demonstrates that
the inherent love of liberty has a place in the hearts of the German
race, and should furnish to Emperor William a warning note that there
may be a point where, in spite of the Germans’ love for Fatherland,
and pride in the glories achieved by the Empire, they may resent
expression of autocratic authority on the part of their Emperor.
When the German becomes an American citizen--and there are no better
citizens of America than the Germans--the spirit of equality, which
has lain dormant in the Teutonic blood for centuries, immediately
asserts itself. Under the wise guidance of Bismarck, German unity was
made possible, and the glory won by united Germany has influenced
the Germans in Europe to submit to heavy taxation, and the continued
assumption of social superiority; but the time is rapidly approaching,
which it would be well for Emperor William to consider, when the German
people of Europe will exhibit the same love of liberty and equality
that the children of the German race exhibit as citizens of the
American Republic. It is to be hoped that the German empire will not
sustain the severe shock in the latter part of the nineteenth century
by which the whole social system in the kingdom of France was rent
asunder, in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER XVII.
SWITZERLAND, 1424.
That little dot on the map of Europe, situated among the Alps, called
Switzerland, has always formed an attractive and pleasing object to
lovers of freedom and equality. Surrounded by powerful neighbors, the
mountaineers of these little cantons seem to have imbibed, with the
purer air of heaven in which they live on the mountains, that degree of
stern courage, determination, and love of liberty which enables them to
resist the pressure of the great nations by which they are surrounded.
Switzerland, like the wedge of steel, tempered by the spirit of
republicanism, has formed one point of pressure which the monarchies
around her have been unable to resist. The love of liberty with which
the Swiss are endowed, and their hatred of “caste,” are best typified
by “The Gray Leaguers” and their story:
In the green valleys of Eastern Switzerland, on almost every hill
that juts out from the gray mountain walls of the Alps and commands
the fertile fields and villages of the upper Rhineland, there stands
a ruined castle. And in that castle, in the early Middle Ages,
there dwelt some little local princeling who lorded it with almost
unquestioned power over the peasantry around him.
These feudal nobles had held sway, with no right save that founded on
might, for generations, before the subject peasants, weak, scattered,
and resourceless, were at last driven by the intolerable arrogance
of this dominant “caste” to combine for mutual defence. Some of the
leaders of the movement met in the little hillside chapel of St. Anna,
still standing near the town of Truns, in March, 1424, and took solemn
oaths to respect their own and all the people’s rights, and to wage war
upon those who would not respect them.
Johann Caldar--a name revered in his district as is that of William
Tell in the scenes of his legendary exploits--gave the signal for
the first attack on the oppressors. Caldar dwelt in the upper Rhine
valley, not far from the baronial castle of Fardun. The Lord of Fardun
entered the peasant’s cottage one day at noontide, and in wanton token
of contempt spat into the soup that was boiling for the midday. Caldar
seized him, and crying, “Eat the soup thou hast seasoned!” thrust his
head into the pot, and held it thus until he was choked. Then he went
forth to bear over mountain and valley the banner of a revolt that
forever annihilated the nobles’ tyranny and left their strongholds in
ruins.
For three centuries and a half the Gray Leaguers, as the victorious
peasants called themselves, met every tenth year in the chapel of St.
Anna, where their first oaths had been taken, and renewed the pledge of
popular liberty. At length their territory became the fifteenth canton
of the Swiss Republic, still retaining, as it does to-day, its old
name--the Grisons, as it is in French.
The American traveling in Europe may view with delight scenes upon the
beautiful Rhine; his artistic eye may be delighted by the art treasures
of Italy; memories made dear to him may be recalled as he visits
England; but in Switzerland he seems to fill his lungs with kindred and
familiar air. This little oasis in the desert of monarchies, surrounded
by worshippers at the temple of “caste,” is to the American an Alabama,
“Here we rest.”
Until the overthrow of the Third Napoleon and the establishment
of a republic in France, nowhere else in Europe did the American
feel himself so much at home as in Switzerland; and to those rugged
mountaineers of the Alps is due the credit of keeping alive the spirit
of liberty almost submerged beneath the flood of monarchical ideas
which inundated Europe. Every republic on earth, and each republican,
should feel indebted to little Switzerland that the fire of freedom was
not entirely extinguished.
CHAPTER XVIII.
RUSSIA.
At the very name of Russia a kind of horror fills the souls of those
who love liberty, equality, and detest “caste” and oppression. Russia
is a veritable blot upon the civilization of the nineteenth century.
She furnishes an example of all that was horrible under the old
monarchical governments of Europe. Russia’s social life is honeycombed
with anarchy, nihilism, and hatred. Beneath the surface, made smooth by
military despotism, there burns the fierce fires of inextinguishable
hatred. The people are deprived of those rights and liberties enjoyed
by the citizens of even those monarchical governments by which Russia
is surrounded, curtailed though those privileges may appear to the
free American citizen. Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy are almost
respectable in comparison with Russia. There can be, of course, but one
end to such a condition--we can hardly call it civilization--in that
tremendous empire. Revolution and anarchy in its worst form will sooner
or later drench the soil of Russia with blood.
Unfortunately for the future welfare and happiness of the Russians,
their autocratic master, the Czar, permits no existence of a vent-hole
or crater of the volcano upon which the nation slumbers. An election
like that of November 8th in America relieves the pressure. In Russia,
the discontent of the Common People, and all expression of it, are
suppressed by the iron hand that controls the vast horde of soldiers of
which he is master. Russia’s history and record present not one shining
spot to relieve the dark picture of crime, ignorance, oppression,
intolerance, and the suffering of the Common People.
Briefly, Russia contains one-sixth of the land of the entire globe
and one-quarter of the inhabitants. The government is an absolute and
strongly centralized monarchy. It is one of the most arbitrary and
merciless despotisms on the face of the earth.
As the positive and negative poles of an electric battery, or as like
and unlike attract, there has long been a strong friendship between
Russia and our country. The two represent the antipodes of government.
From the period of the appenages (small, petty States, 1054-1238) the
enmity has been in a state of smothered or open revolt. It was overrun
by the fierce Mongols and held under their iron yoke from 1238 to
1462. During that period Moscow and many other cities were burned and
the country devastated.
Ivan III. (1263), during his reign of 43 years, did much to consolidate
the empire, and introduced the knout as an agent of civilization.
Ivan IV., known as Ivan the Terrible, was a ferocious monster
(1533-1584), who first assumed the title of Czar (a Slavonic form of
the Latin Cæsar), committed numerous atrocities, and killed his eldest
son by a blow in a fit of anger.
Peter the Great (1689-1725) was remorseless in his punishment of those
who revolted, as in the case of the streltzi; the rebellion of the
Cossacks of the Don; that of Mazeppa, the hetman of the Little-Russian
Cossacks; he inaugurated serfdom, and tortured his own son, Alexis, to
death.
The rule of Paul was intolerable; he was won over by the artful
diplomacy of Napoleon, and assassinated in March, 1801. In the Polish
insurrection of 1831 the people were ground to powder.
Alexander II. (1855-1881) emancipated the serfs in 1861. It was freedom
only in name. Nihilism sprang up and flourished frightfully. Where his
father daily walked unattended, Alexander was in hourly peril. April
16, 1866, he was shot at by a Pole; the following year another Pole
shot at him while visiting Napoleon at Paris; April 14, 1879, another
Pole attempted to kill him. The same year saw the first attempt to
blow up the United Palace and to wreck the train upon which the Czar
was riding from Moscow to St. Petersburg. A similar conspiracy was
successful, March 13, 1881. Five of the conspirators, including a
woman, were executed. Alexander ruled twenty-six years, and left Russia
exhausted by wars and honeycombed by plots.
He was succeeded by the present Alexander, whose reign has been
characterized by conspiracies and the constant depredations of
suspected persons.
The mines of Siberia have been the living death of hundreds of
thousands of patriots. More than 50,000 Poles were transported thither
after the insurrection of 1863. Since the opening of the present
century more than 600,000 men, women, and children have been sent to
Siberia. All are in the depths of utter misery and despair. Out of
200,000, more than one-third have disappeared without being accounted
for. From 20,000 to 40,000 are living the life of _brodyaghi_--that is,
trying to make their way through the forests to their native provinces
in Russia.
And yet nihilism, socialism, the spirit of revolt, are more powerful
than ever, and ere long will come the upheaval, when all shall be
overturned and “the old shall pass away and all things become new.”
The Russian nobility, with the Czar at their head, as the high priest
of “caste,” are solely and entirely responsible for the spirit of
anarchy and nihilism which is abroad in the domain of immense Russia.
It is a fashion and the fancy of the sham aristocracy in this country
to inveigh against anything like socialism, nihilism, and anarchism in
America. Should the presence of this dread monster, called nihilism,
ever be felt in America, the blame would rest entirely upon the
shoulders of the sham aristocrats, just as the Czar and his nobles in
Russia are responsible for its presence in that country. There must be
a vent for the pent-up indignation of the people; this is, happily for
us, found in the ballot-box. It is to this source of relief that we are
indebted for the non-existence of socialism in America. It has not been
the prudence, wisdom, or consideration of the sham aristocrats which
prevents the growth of nihilism here.
CHAPTER XIX.
PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS IN ROME.
There is a striking historical parallelism between the Anglo-Saxons
in modern history and the Romans a thousand years before. The Romans
conquered the world as the Anglo-Saxons are conquering the world. The
Romans were the first race to found and maintain an empire as wide as
the bounds of western civilization. Their characteristic qualities
were, like those of the Anglo-Saxons, their supreme sense of duty,
their respect for law, their great natural aptitude for government,
their earnest practicality, their somewhat deficient sense of the
beautiful, and their high military skill and discipline.
But before Rome could begin her march toward her later position as
mistress of the world she had to rid herself of the domestic incubus of
an internal oligarchy. The authentic history of Rome--for the earlier
annals of her seven kings are little more than legends--opens with the
struggle of the Plebeians--the mass of her people--to break down the
hereditary domination of the privileged “caste,” the Patricians, who
had a monopoly of political power, had appropriated the whole of the
public land, and by unjust laws had burdened the Plebeians with taxes
and debts, and reduced many of them to actual slavery.
In the year 495 B. C., there one day rushed into the crowded forum an
old man, ragged and emaciated, his back covered with bloody stripes. He
loudly proclaimed his history, which was that of hundreds of others. He
had done service in several wars; his farm had been ravaged and burned,
and his cattle driven away; to pay his taxes he had been forced into
debt; his Patrician creditor had demanded a usurious interest, and had
finally compelled him to work as a slave.
The occurrence created great excitement among the Plebeians, and
would have provoked an outbreak had not messengers entered the city
bearing the news that a Volucian army was marching to attack Rome.
With their stern sense of patriotic duty, the disaffected citizens
prepared to meet the foe, it being promised that their wrongs should be
investigated after the war. They met and defeated the enemy, but the
promise of the Patricians was not kept.
In despair of obtaining justice, the Plebeians decided to secede from
the Commonwealth and to found a city on the Sacred Hill, three miles
from Rome. This brought the Patricians to terms. Rather than lose
the working force of the community, they agreed to release all those
enslaved for debt, and to authorize the appointment of magistrates,
called Tribunes, who should be chosen from the Plebeians, and should
have the right of forbidding any act of oppression.
From that beginning the Plebeians advanced to full political and social
enfranchisement, after a struggle that lasted for two centuries--a
stern and bitter struggle, although it was waged “with a perseverance,
forbearance, and moderation, of which there is scarcely a parallel
in the history of the world.”[3] The next step was a law to compel
the Patricians to pay rent for the public land they occupied. It was
disregarded, and the Tribune Genucius, who attempted to enforce it, was
murdered. Then by mutual agreement a body of commissioners (Decemvirs)
was appointed to draw up a revised code of laws for all classes. Again
the Plebeians had been deceived; the commissioners seized the executive
power, and held it illegally and tyrannously until the Commons ended
their usurpation by a second secession to the Sacred Hill.
The agrarian question remained a burning one until the Tribunes
Licinius and Sextius forced a settlement of it by stopping the whole
machinery of government until their propositions were accepted. The
procedure was constitutional, but for ten years (376 to 366 B. C.)
Rome was in a state of anarchy, and the fact that actual civil war was
avoided testifies strongly to Roman self-restraint.
The legislative power was now the only one denied to the Plebeians.
The Publican law was passed to give it to them, but the Patricians
prevented its enforcement until by a third secession the Commons again
carried their point, and at last secured final and complete equality
between the classes. (286 B. C.)
Rome, once the mistress of the world, retained her grandeur only so
long as the principles of true democracy pulsated through her body
politic and nerved her every action. When prosperity, corruption, and
abuse blinded the rulers to the claims of the Plebeians, then came
revolution, civil war, decline, and finally the fall of the proudest
empire known in the history of man.
So, the mightiest empire the world ever knew declined and fell before
the power of the PEOPLE, who, outraged in their most sacred rights,
revolted again and again, until, as may be said, the fabric, whose
shadow reached to the uttermost ends of the earth, was torn asunder,
and so went to fragments that not one stone was left upon another.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Dr. Schmidtz’s History of Rome.
CHAPTER XX.
GREECE--VENICE--THE RULE OF “CASTE.”
Although ancient Greece was divided into many small countries, yet they
were united by bonds of union, of community, of blood and language, of
religious rites and festivals, manners and character. In these respects
they were distinguished from all other people, whom they called
barbarians.
A thousand years before the Christian era the Greeks were divided into
the nobles, who were powerful and wealthy; the freemen, some of whom
owned estates; and the slaves.
But the manners of the highest class were simple. The nobles were proud
of their skill in the manual arts, and their wives and daughters ably
discharged their household duties.
Two hundred years later (B.C. 800) most of the states and cities of
Greece became democratic. One uniform method characterized the change
from monarchy to democracy. An oligarchy of nobles would overthrow the
monarchy, and then some one noble would overthrow the oligarchy and
establish the cause of the people.
Sparta was the highest type of oligarchy; Athens of democracy.
Ever since Aristotle distinguished them, there have been three
recognized types of government--monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy--the
rule of one man, the rule of a few men, and the rule of the people.
That the last is the just and the true form of polity, the enlightened
opinion of the world has long ago irrevocably decided. Of the other
two, experience shows that monarchy is more tolerable. A Nero may
have stained the pages of history by the diabolic cruelty to which
autocratic power gave free scope; a Napoleon may have poured out half
the life-blood of his country to further his selfish personal ambition;
yet, on the whole, the evils of one man’s rule have been more endurable
than those of the domination of a class or “caste.” In latter days
the sovereign has come to be looked upon less as a personal ruler
than as an abstraction--an embodiment of theory expressed in the old
maxim that “the king can do no wrong”--a conception far less offensive
to the innate democracy of all manly peoples; or, he is regarded as
a mere figure-head, as may be said to be the case is England, whose
nominal monarch has far less practical influence upon the executive and
legislative departments than has the President of the United States.
An oligarchy is the worst of all governmental systems. It has never
made a people truly great. Wherever such a government has existed its
record has almost always been dark and its end bloody.
Look, for example, at two of the most successful oligarchies of
history--ancient Sparta and mediæval Venice. Sparta was, as Bulwer
justly observes in his “Rise and Fall of Athens,” a “machine wound
up by the tyranny of a fixed principle, which did not permit it even
to dine as it pleased; its children were not its own--itself had no
property in self. So it flourished and decayed, bequeathing to fame
men only noted for hardy valor, fanatical patriotism, and profound but
dishonorable craft--attracting, indeed, the wonder of the world, but
advancing no claim to its gratitude and contributing no single addition
to its intellectual stores.”
Such was the state that was ruled by the privileged “caste” of the
Spartans and its administrative committee, the Ephoræ--a state
remembered only for its brief military supremacy over her Grecian
neighbors. Contrast her with one of those neighbors--Athens, the most
typical and the most democratic of ancient democracies.[4] “The people
of Athens,” says Bulwer, “were not, as in Sparta, the tools of the
state--they were the state! In Athens the true blessing of freedom
was rightly placed in the opinions and the soul. This unshackled
liberty had its convulsions and its excesses, but it produced masterly
philosophy, sublime poetry, and accomplished art with the energy and
splendor of unexampled intelligence. Looking round us, more than four
and twenty centuries after, in the establishment of the American
Constitution, we yet behold the imperishable blessings which we derive
from the liberties of Athens. Her life became extinct, but her soul
transfused itself, immortal and immortalizing, throughout the world.”
Venice was another such oligarchy as Sparta--ruled by a small patrician
“caste,” who chose an all-powerful Senate from their own number; and
from the Senate was selected an Executive Council of Three--a name that
has become proverbial for a body of secret and irresponsible tyrants.
Venice’s strength was in commerce, in finance, as Sparta’s was in war.
Her rich trade with the East and West made her seem
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.[5]
But her internal government was one long reign of terror. The Council
of Three met at night, masked and robed in scarlet cloaks, to judge
those against whom accusations had been thrust into the yawning “Lions’
Mouths”--two slots in the wall into which any might thrust an anonymous
denunciation of his enemy. And from the Council’s sentence there was no
hope of appeal; its victims were hurried across the Bridge of Sighs to
vanish forever from human sight in the awful torture chambers to which
that melancholy passage led.
The ending of most oligarchies has been a violent one, as was that of
the Thirty Tyrants at Athens, or that of the Decemviri at Rome. At
Venice the sway of a “caste” lasted for centuries, and was ended only
by a foreign conqueror--so complete an ascendency had the privileged
patricians gained over the fettered populace. The wonderful mercantile
prosperity of the community stifled the sentiment of popular
liberty--a notable warning to mercantile and materialistic America!
No oligarchy, and nothing of oligarchic tendencies can be endured in
this country. We must not and will not have a dominant “caste.”
FOOTNOTES:
[4] In the best age of Athens, life was marked by a dignified and
elegant simplicity. Every free citizen was one of the rulers of the
state, through his vote in the assembly and the law courts; and,
consequently, there was little exclusiveness in social life. An
Athenian might be poor, but if he had general ability, wit, or artistic
skill, he was welcome in the best houses of Athens.--_Sanderson’s
Epitome of History_, p. 169.
[5] Childe Harold, Canto IV.
CHAPTER XXI.
EGYPT, 4235 B. C.
Egypt, the cradle of civilization, had its Democrats, who struck
resistless blows for equality, freedom, and fraternity for the race.
So accustomed have we become, in thinking of Egypt, to be struck so
forcibly by those evidences, the pyramids, of slave labor and the
oppressed condition of the large portion of the ancient population
of Egypt, that the existence of democrats in Egypt seems totally
inconsistent with our preconceived idea of the ancient civilization
of that country. Yet, we find, during the fourth dynasty--4235 B. C.,
the pyramids were builded, and the great Sphinx at Gizeh. The wealth
and splendor of Egypt were unapproached elsewhere; civilization, the
arts and sciences, reached a height which, in some respects, the world
has never known since that time. The civilization of to-day is unequal
to the task of rearing such structures as the pyramids, over which
more than fifty centuries have rolled without displacing a stone or
crumbling a corner of the prodigious masses of granite, hewn from
the distant quarries of Asswan, Mokattam and Tarah, and transported
by means beyond the skill and comprehension of the science of the
nineteenth century.
But with all its splendor, wealth, magnificence and culture, the
kings and rulers of the Fourth Dynasty became corrupt, oppressive and
tyrannical. The Common People, as they were called, revolted, and a
revolution of fire and blood extinguished the dynasty, 3951 B. C.
Heedless of the immutable law that only in union is there strength,
Egypt not only became corrupt and tyrannical, but divided into two
kingdoms, who warred furiously against each other. Then it was that the
nomadic hordes of Arabia and Syria saw their opportunity, and, swarming
over the borders (2114 B. C.) and overflowing the valley of the Nile
with a human flood a thousand-fold more destructive than the turbid
inundation of that great river, they crushed the struggling legions
like worms in the dust, and became the masters of the country.
They were the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, who stamped their rugged
individuality on that wonderful land. They ruled for four centuries,
forming the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth dynasties. Their last
king was Apepi, who reigned sixty-one years, and is believed by many
to have been the Pharaoh (“Pharaoh” was the general name for kings) in
whose reign Joseph came into Egypt and was made governor over all the
land.
The Shepherd Kings gradually succumbed to the civilization, culture,
and manners of the Egyptians, and vanished from history by absorption
among those people.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHRISTIANITY.
Aside from the fact of its divine origin and inspired teachers, the
doctrine of Christianity, the advent of the Messiah, was so opportune
that, even had he not been the true Saviour, but taught as he did and
as his disciples did, Christianity, by reason of the condition of the
civilized world, would have made rapid and permanent progress among
the “Common People.” Rome was at that time mistress of the world. Her
empire extended over the whole of Western, and a large portion of
Eastern civilization. Her conquering legions had carried their eagles
to the utmost confines of the then civilized portion of the Western
world.
The cultured Greek and the barbarous Briton, the learned Egyptian and
the warlike Teuton, alike felt the Roman yoke. Palestine was a province
of the great Roman Empire. Roman officials, Roman representatives,
and Roman soldiers ruled the people of Palestine with a rod of iron.
It had once been said that “to be a Roman citizen was to be a king.”
While the Roman Republic had ceased to exist, and the Cæsars ruled in
place of the old republican form of government, creating, as a result
of a monarchy, a nobility, class distinction, and “caste,” still the
traditions and the feelings of the Roman citizen remained with him. He
was a king in comparison with the conquered people of the provinces
which had been added to the Roman Empire.
The Romans were essentially warriors; cruel and oppressive,
merciless and masterful, at every period of the existence of the
Roman government, whether monarchical or republican. But under the
Cæsars there had sprung up a privileged class, the nobility, who
had accumulated vast wealth, surrounded themselves with an army of
retainers and servants, through whom they imposed upon the “Common
People” every kind of oppression imaginable.
This was not so much the case where the nobility came in contact with
only Roman citizens, but in every conquered province or country the
arrogance and cruelty of the representatives of the nobility of Rome
made absolutely wretched and hopeless the lives of the conquered people.
The Jewish people had become almost accustomed, as a race, to the yoke
of a conqueror. So often had they been oppressed, and so long, they had
learned that the ark of their hope and comfort lay, not in temporal
power, but in that hope of everlasting happiness which the Word of God,
delivered to Moses, insured them hereafter. This had resulted in the
creation among the Jewish people of a priesthood and a religious order
almost as powerful as the priesthood of ancient Egypt, which exerted,
with regard to spiritual and social affairs, though not in conflict
with the power of Rome, almost the same tyrannical power as Rome did by
the might of her legions in temporal affairs.
Between the grindstones of military despotism and priestly despotism
the poor Jew was ground until his very soul cried out in anguish. The
true religion, given to his forefathers, through that great teacher,
Moses, by God Almighty, had ceased to afford him comfort. “Caste”
had crept into the temple, as well as into the Roman government,
destroying, as it ever will, peace and happiness at home, security and
prosperity abroad. Therefore, when a voice was heard “crying in the
wilderness, Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” the ears of the Jew, the
Gentile, the barbarian, all the world over, were ready to listen and
follow the sweet music of hope created in the breasts of the oppressed,
which Christ brought.
The persecution of our Saviour and his sufferings arose and were
occasioned by the priestly “caste,” and executed, in that scene on
the cross, by the military “caste”--the Roman soldiers. “Caste,” and
the crime of it, is responsible for the crucifixion of our Saviour,
the Son of God. The “Common People,” in multitudes, followed Jesus,
and listened in rapt attention to the loving words of peace and hope
he brought them. It was the high priests of the temple who accused
him; it was the Roman governor who had him crucified, by reason of the
accusations of the priestly “caste.”
No fair-minded man, examining into the beautiful story furnished by
the existence of the Son of God on earth, can fail to recognize that
the loving, peaceful, kindly mission of our Saviour was made wretched,
resulting in his suffering and death, by reason of the _crime of
“caste.”_
Aristocrats and aristocracy have occasioned, from the beginning of the
world, nearly all of the sins, wretchedness, and misery of the children
of God; and when He sent His Son to save us, they crucified Him. In the
coming of Christ, the “Common People” of Palestine saw a gleam of hope,
a star to guide them to that haven of rest where neither priesthood
nor Romans ruled; that province where all should be bright, where all
should enter into perfect bliss. This sensation among the “Common
People,” starting like the ripples created by casting a stone into
still waters, extended and widened until it permeated every province of
Rome, making converts of the “Common People.”
The conquered provinces had felt the severity of the iron heel of
Rome upon their necks. The Roman nobles had driven so deeply into
the hearts of the conquered the idea that “to be a Roman was to be a
king,” and that the subjugated people, though morally and mentally
often the superiors of the Romans, were, by the power of the Roman
legions, the inferiors of the followers of the eagles of the Cæsars.
The utter uselessness and impotency of any outbreak upon the part of
the subjugated people, where resort to arms would be sought, was so
apparent, the futility of contending with the might of Rome was so
great, that the civilized world at that time was hopelessly suffering.
To contend with the trained and masterful soldiers of the Cæsars
would be productive of but one result--destruction, suffering, and
humiliation.
To the world, so bereft of all hope for relief from their sufferings,
from the oppressive Roman “caste,” His words and His teachings came
like the sweet, refreshing breath of heaven, bringing a salve to the
wounded spirits of the hopelessly oppressed masses. Christ, the Son of
God, was of the people. The earthly parents selected by the All-Wise
Almighty for the Son that He should send to save His people, were of
the lowly. Christ himself learned the trade of His father, and was
a carpenter; His every utterance, His life, the selection of His
disciples, was, like the Truth, democratic. In fact, Christ would
to-day have been pronounced a socialist. In the nineteenth chapter of
St. Matthew, twenty-first verse, we read: “Jesus answered, If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.”
In St. Mark, tenth chapter, twenty-first verse: “And Jesus, beholding
him, loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way,
sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor.” In St. Luke, twelfth
chapter, thirty-third verse, we find Jesus saying: “Sell that ye have,
and give alms.”
Imagine a minister of to-day, a teacher of the doctrines of this same
Jesus, rising in some good Episcopal church with the would-be noble
Astors seated in front of him, and proclaiming to them: “One thing thou
lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor.”
Think of a Baptist minister, before permitting John D. Rockefeller
and William Rockefeller to partake of the Holy Sacrament, commanding:
“Sell that ye have, and give alms.” Imagine the outrage, indignation,
of these many-millioned moneyed lords, if the son of a poor carpenter
should suggest to them, as Jesus did of old: “If thou wilt be perfect,
go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” That meek and lowly
Jesus who came as a panacea for all sorrow, selecting fishermen to
abide with Him and be His associates, sitting at the table and breaking
bread with these fishermen, making of them “fishers of men,” teaching
to the world the equality of man by His actions and His life; He who
was in the beginning the God, the Saviour, could sit at the table and
live in close communion and association with fishermen. Will you, Mr.
Rockefeller, will you, Mr. Astor, good Christians that you are? Are you
following the doctrines of Him in whose praise you raise your voices,
Sunday after Sunday, in a hundred-thousand-dollar church, before an
aristocratic, well-bred, genteel, ten-thousand-dollar-a-year clergyman?
Would you, fair dames of fashion, assist at the coming into the world
of a child in a stable, whose cradle was a manger, whose curtain was
the straw thereof? You ladies of America, whose crests adorn your
carriages, affect to view with adoring eyes a hundred-thousand-dollar
painting of the Madonna and her child, yet gaze with contempt, and
avoid with averted glances, contact with the pure but poor wives and
mothers of our land.
St. Paul, who, of all the early teachers of Christianity, was probably
the “most respectable,” as soon as the angel of God appeared to him,
became converted to the doctrines of Him who was Truth personified,
and threw “caste” to the winds. In the seventeenth chapter of the
Acts, St. Paul, upon Mars Hill, at Athens, proclaimed the equality of
man; in the twenty-sixth verse, he says: “And hath made of one blood
all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”
As God has made us all of one blood, how contrary to the teaching of
Him whom you say you follow, to endeavor to establish a theory that
birth makes a difference and inequality, that there is any peculiarity
about one drop of human blood that makes it better than another. The
teachings of the divine philanthropist, the Saviour of mankind, took
deep and permanent root in the minds of men, because the very essence
of it was that no matter whether the believer in those teachings be
a poor, oppressed Jew, or an outcast Gentile, or a Roman Cæsar, he
stood only before his God as an equal of any other of God’s children.
It was the leveling, the equalizing of rank and power that gave the
impetus, at first, to those truths which are the pillars of the faith
of the Christian nations of earth. “Come, ye who are heavy-laden,” is
the doctrine that appealed to the “Common People.” As lasting and as
abiding as the faith that we have in the Christian religion, so long
and enduring will be the sentiment of the human soul believing in the
equality of man. It has been so from the beginning, and will be to
the end, and surprise and astonishment at each fresh evidence of its
outburst is unnecessary. The plebeians of Rome, before the coming of
the Lord, asserted the same right, and would have sought the Sacred
Hill to establish a city of their own had not the patricians made
concessions. It is the same spirit that cost Charles I. his head, Louis
XVI. his head, the British Government this vast empire, and the same
spirit that, November 8, 1892, cost the Republican party its hold upon
power; because, in the minds of the people, that party was thoroughly
impregnated with the much-hated principle of the inequality of man.
The rich and powerful were the last to be converted to Christianity.
They trembled and said, as the Roman Governor did, “Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Christian,” but not quite, because the very
fundamental principles of the Christian religion are Love, Charity,
and Equality. Their conversion would mean the surrendering of their
cherished claim of “caste.” Many a conversion among the mighty, when at
last effected, was the result of policy upon the part of the converted,
who had commenced to feel the power of the “Common People” who had
listened and become imbued with the divine teachings of the doctrine of
Christianity.
Had it been necessary, as now, to pay salaries of from one to
ten thousand dollars to those teachers who, in the early age of
Christianity, promulgated the doctrines of their God, how few
conversions would have been made at all. These wayfarers, obeying the
divine injunction of our Saviour, to “go and teach all the people of
earth,” took no heed of the morrow. They did not teach in temples which
required thousands of dollars to build; they did not find it necessary
to be surrounded with luxury; they needed no vacations and excursions
to recuperate their exhausted natures. Had it been necessary for
those “fishers of men” to have carriages, temples, and salaries, the
Christian religion would have made exceedingly slow progress. There
were no Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, in the congregations that
surrounded the early teachers of the doctrine of the meek and lowly
Jesus.
We hear on every side (when this idea is advanced), proclaimed by
the gentlemen of the clerical profession, that “the conditions have
changed.” If such be the case, then history is terribly misguiding. We
are told of the luxuries that surrounded the rich of the Roman empire.
We read, in the Scripture, of Dives, and the rich men of that day. We
know--unless history is entirely in error--that Astors, Vanderbilts,
Rockefellers, existed then. But the early teachers of Christianity
loved their Lord and followed his footsteps, in that he came to give
hope, comfort, and rest to those who were heavy-laden.
The meetings held by the early followers of Christ were not “club
meetings,” at which expensive music entertained the audience.
The audience was not addressed by high-priced elocutionists, nor
entertained by the mental gymnastics of some word-painting acrobat.
Humbly and meekly, hopefully, trustingly, the people sought the
presence of that Teacher whose earnestness and faith was evidenced in
His life and manner of living. His words were blest, all untutored
as he was, with the eloquence of that truth with which his soul was
filled. He did not say to the people, “Give alms,” and at the same
time live in a brown-stone front. He did not say, “Take no heed of the
morrow,” and keep a bank account. He did not preach to his cold and
hungry brother that the Christian religion would give him comfort, and
keep the warm overcoat on his back while doing so.
In their very lives the early teachers of Christianity made the truth
of their own convictions apparent. Is it any wonder that in this, the
nineteenth century, doubt arises in the minds of the people? They doubt
the doctrine because they doubt the sincerity of the teacher. It is so
utterly inconsistent in a man to preach, “If thou wilt be perfect, go
and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,” while his hearers know
that within a few blocks of where this teacher lives in comfort and
luxury, some poor family is starving.
Let us find men to teach us, who, when they find a poor, shivering
wretch, but a brother, on the streets, will take off their warm coats
and throw them round his shoulders. Let us find our leaders in the path
made plain by the divine Master, taking off their shoes to clothe the
benumbed feet of the outcast tramp. Then, and when that day arrives,
there’ll be no such thing as “caste” and class distinction in the
house of God. Then will the house of God be sought by the multitudes,
as of old they sought the mount whereon the Lord did preach. When the
privilege of entering the house of God and occupying a seat therein
is not sold to the highest bidder, to furnish the ten-thousand-dollar
salary for the teacher of the doctrine of that lowly Master, who had
nowhere to lay His head, then will the multitudes gather to do the
bidding of the teacher. When there are no high places in the temple to
be sold to the representatives of “caste” and sham aristocracy, then
will the house of God be a home and refuge for the people. When the
charities of Christ’s church on earth are not controlled by snubbing,
scornful, shoddy aristocrats, when the wife of the poor man shall feel
welcome to give her mite, along with the contributions of the rich,
without enduring their scornful glances, and subjecting herself to the
insult of their assumed social superiority, then will the people become
charitable. The church, the Sunday-school, the church society, the
charitable committees, have all become impregnated with this crime of
“caste,” which crucified the Saviour.
CHAPTER XXIII.
NOT A DEMOCRATIC PARTY VICTORY.--DEMOCRACY IS NOT THE NAME OF A PARTY,
BUT OF A PRINCIPLE.
The endeavor has been made in the preceding chapters to furnish
examples of the uprisings of the people from the time of ancient Egypt
to the present day.
The endeavor has been made to place before the thinking men of the
wealthier class parallels, in ancient history, of great political
upheavals in the past history of our own country, as well as in the
history of foreign countries and nations--exhibitions similar to the
powerful protest made by the people on November 8, 1892.
The object to be attained by such an arrangement of facts as will
impress the wealthier classes, is that a change in their methods and
manners may be brought about. No one can pretend to contradict that
the people with incomes less than $5,000 a year could, if they saw
fit, cause such legislation as would relieve them from the burden of
the expenses of the government. It is almost incredible that a journal
as preëminent in the Democratic campaign as was the New York _Sun_,
should publish an editorial, as late as the 10th day of December, as
follows:--
NOT DEMOCRATIC.
“Various propositions for an income tax come from Democratic
free-traders, who are ready for any scheme for raising revenue
that doesn’t depend upon a protective tariff. Then there are the
Populists, Nationalists, and divers miscellaneous cranks who
object to wealth on general principles. Other men’s wealth, of
course. To these powerful thinkers an income tax is a penalty
to be inflicted upon the plutocrats, a discouragement to the
acquisition of money. There is much flabby talk about plutocracy,
and a good deal of the talk in favor of an income tax is of that
nature.
“With the opinions of the Populists we are not concerned, except
as students and observers of the political curiosities of the
time. It is proper, on the other hand, to remind Democrats that an
income tax is undemocratic. Undemocratic in principles, because
it is an interference with individual business and a premium upon
perjury. Undemocratic in precedent, because the imposition of such
a tax was unanimously and strenuously opposed by the Democratic
party, and because the extension of the life of that tax from 1870
to 1872 was likewise opposed, with substantial unanimity, by the
Democratic party.
“The only excuse for the income tax was that it was a war measure.
What excuse can be given for reimposing it? Is there a war against
money or against common-sense?”
Democratic free-traders, so obnoxious to the New York _Sun_, by the
suggestion of an income tax, are merely seeking for means whereby the
expenses of the Government may be defrayed. They know that something
is the matter with the Democratic masses, who have shown their
dissatisfaction with the existing state of things. These Democratic
free-traders (and they fairly represent the doctrine proclaimed as a
principle of the Democratic party, and adopted as a platform in the
Chicago Convention) know that if they are to be consistent they must
abolish, to a great extent, the duties upon imported articles. They
also know that if they abolish duties, there will not be sufficient
money paid into the treasury of the United States to defray the current
expenses of the Government. They have realized the powerful current of
public opinion, which demands the equalization of taxes between those
who enjoy the benefits of living under the government of the Federal
Union. The tariff duties do not fall with the same proportionate weight
upon the rich and the poor. The rich derive greater benefit from the
security offered their property than the poor, as the amount of their
property is greater than that of the poor; yet a Vanderbilt consumes
no more sugar, and therefore pays no more duty, than the Homestead
striker.
The Democratic free-trader, “with his flabby talk of an income tax,” is
merely seeking for a means to furnish, upon something like an equitable
basis, the money necessary to run the Government.
The “Populist, Nationalist, and divers miscellaneous cranks” (referred
to in the editorial quoted) call to mind the Abolitionists of 1856, who
were spoken of with so much contempt, and yet who, four years after, as
the Republican party, with Abraham Lincoln as their candidate, swept
the country. If “flabby talk” means a demand made by the people upon
the wealthier class to render unto the Government in proportion to
benefits conferred by the Government, then let “flabbyism” continue to
characterize the talk of our legislators, because it would be, with all
of its “flabbiness,” a welcome doctrine to the “Common People.”
The editorial under discussion goes on to recite the fact that the
opinions of “the Populist are not worthy of concern, except to those
students and observers of the political curiosities of the times.”
Again is called to mind the studies and observations made concerning
“curiosities” that existed in the political firmament in 1856, and
resulted in the AURORA BOREALIS in 1860.
This editorial, which is worthy of great attention, emanating from the
source that it does, reminds the Democrats (meaning the Democratic
party) that an income tax is “undemocratic--undemocratic in principle,”
because the Democratic party strenuously opposed the life of that tax
from 1870 to 1872. There is _not_ a shadow of doubt that an income tax
is _not_ in accordance with the principles of that party which bears
the name of the _Democratic party_; but that _it is in accordance_
with _democracy_ and the _feelings_ that fill the breasts of the
masses who voted last November for Grover Cleveland, and no one better
understands the fact that the victory of last November was not won by
the Democratic party, as a party, than the one man most benefited and
elevated thereby; that is, the President-elect, Grover Cleveland.
The howl that one thing or another is “not according to the principles
of the Democratic party,” ought to have but little effect upon him;
and, judging from the editorial of November 21st, which appeared in
that other journalistic pillar of the Democratic party, the New York
_World_, Grover Cleveland appreciates the exact position of affairs,
and how and why he was elected.
THE FRUITS OF VICTORY.
“Mr. Cleveland’s speeches since the election are even better than
those which he made in the campaign. There is an advantage in
perfect freedom.
“No truer or more philosophical statement of the causes that
underlay the recent political revolution has been made than
was contained in Mr. Cleveland’s brief speech at the Manhattan
Club. ‘The American people,’ he said, ‘have become politically
more thoughtful and more watchful than they were ten years
ago. They are considering now vastly more than they were then
political principles and party policies, in distinction from party
manipulation and the distribution of rewards for partisan services
and activities.’
“During the campaign, it was a common remark that so quiet a
Presidential canvass had not been seen in many years before.
But the result showed that the people had been thinking, and
that they knew what they wanted. What they want, and what they
have demanded, they must be given, if the Democratic party is to
remain in power. And what the people ask and expect, Mr. Cleveland
clearly indicated in this earnest and elevated passage in his
speech:--
“‘In the present mood of the people, neither the Democratic party
nor any other party can gain and keep the support of the majority
of our voters by merely promising or distributing personal
spoils and favors from partisan supremacy. They are thinking of
principles and policies, and they will be satisfied with nothing
short of the utmost good faith in the redemption of the pledges
to serve them in their collective capacity by the inauguration of
wise policies and giving to them honest government.
“‘I would not have this otherwise, for I am willing that the
Democratic party shall see that its only hope of successfully
meeting the situation is by being absolutely and patriotically
true to itself and its profession. This is a sure guarantee of
success, and I know of no other.’
“Truer words were never spoken. The fruits of Democratic victory
must be sought in lower and more just taxes, in lessened
expenditures, in a better public service, in the reform of abuses
and the remedy of evils from which the people are suffering, and,
in general, in good and honest government. This is indeed the
only vindication of the success that has been achieved, the only
guarantee of other triumphs to come.”
Grover Cleveland, better probably than any other man in the Union,
appreciates the fact that his elevation to the Presidential chair was
not secured because there are more members of what is known as the
Democratic party in the Union than members of what is known as the
Republican party. It must be apparent that many who formerly voted with
the Republican party decided, for some good and sufficient reason,
that they would vote for the nominee of the Democratic party, in the
last Presidential election, and that they did so vote on the 8th day
of November is evidenced by the fact of Grover Cleveland’s large
majorities, and the increased vote for the ticket bearing his name,
even in States whose electoral votes will be cast in the Electoral
College for the nominee of the Republican party.
It is impossible to ascribe this change to increased emigration and the
fact that recently naturalized citizens voted the Democratic ticket. In
the first place, there is no such unanimity of love for the Democratic
party, as a _party_, in the breasts of the emigrants who have been
recently naturalized, as to account for their voting unanimously the
Democratic ticket. Again, the number of foreigners who have been made,
by naturalization, citizens of the United States within the last four
years is not sufficient to account for this tremendous revolution;
and, further, the greatest gains made by the Democratic nominee were
not made in those sections wherein the greatest flood of emigration
has poured. Therefore, it seems conclusive that the nominee of the
Democratic party received the support of Americans who had formerly
voted with the Republican party.
Now, upon what ground can this general conversion rest? It was not done
by the flaring of trumpets, by oratory, or reasoning upon the issues as
set forth in the platforms of the two parties. It is hard to imagine
many voters being convinced of the advantages that would arise under a
system of State banks. It would seem that that would convince few, if
any, that the Democratic party was more desirable than the Republican
party, to have in charge of the finances of the nation. That, as an
abstract principle, “Free Trade,” or “tariff for revenue only,”
converted this large number of former Republican voters, is a statement
not justified by the vote cast in different States, nor is it possible
to find one man, in each hundred who voted the Democratic ticket, who
can intelligently discuss the subject of Protection and Free Trade and
give satisfactory reasons for preferring Free Trade. The subject is a
perplexing one, even to those who have devoted much time and study to
political economy.
To show a lack of unanimity among the high priests of Democracy on
the subject of Protection and Free Trade, one has only to refer to
the record of the late and eminent Samuel J. Randall, who was a most
pronounced Protectionist, yet a sterling member of the party known
as the Democratic party. On the other hand, we have the Hon. John G.
Carlisle, Senator from the State of Kentucky, who represents ultra
Free Tradeism. Even the same difference exists between those two great
journals, in which are supposed to be mirrored Democratic doctrines
and principles: the New York _Sun_, whose editorial is here quoted,
which is an absolute Protection organ, and the New York _World_, whose
editorial is also quoted, the last-named paper being an absolute Free
Trade organ.
It would seem perfectly apparent to even the most benighted mind
that, with such divergence of opinion among the old-line Democrats,
a doctrine not believed in unanimously by them, could make but few
converts from the ranks of the party pledged to Protection.
Free Trade and State banks were the two leading cries in the campaign
of the Democrats, joined to which was occasionally heard the cry of
fear of a Force Bill.
The worthy New York _Sun_ would, doubtless, attribute largely the
victory to its efforts in calling the attention of the public to the
Force Bill and the danger of its passage if the Republicans should gain
the control of the Federal Government. As a matter of fact, however,
the people of the Union had seen the Republicans in power, controlling
both branches of the National legislature, and also the executive
department of the Government; yet, the people have seen the Lodge Bill,
known as the Force Bill, pass the Republican House of Representatives,
and die a doleful death in the Republican Senate, killed by the votes
of Republican Senators. Therefore, that part of the Democratic policy
which indicated a strenuous objection to the passage of a Force Bill,
if put in power, could not possibly have a great deal of effect in the
missionary work done by the Democratic managers. Those Republicans who
voted for the nominee of the Democratic party, at the last election,
could not have been influenced to do so by the arguments advanced with
regard to the Force Bill.
They had seen Senators of their own, the Republican party, kill a
Force Bill in the Senate of the United States, and they had no reason
to believe but that a recurrence of murder would take place should
another Force Bill pass the House of Representatives and be sent to a
Republican Senate. These three leading features of the Democratic party
appear most prominently in the campaign. Can any fair man say that any
one or all of them influenced those Republicans who voted for Grover
Cleveland to change from the Republican party and become members of the
Democratic party? Is there anything in any one of them or all of them
jointly to make a man forsake old associates, old ideas and faiths, and
to associate himself, by reason of conviction, with things that are new?
It could not be a matter of reason. It was a matter of sentiment. And
(again repeating) no one seems to understand that to be the case better
than the President-elect. It was the sentiment of detestation upon the
part of the masses--the “Common People”--for that assumption of class
distinction, the attempted introduction of “caste” in our country
by those who are allied to, or who had forced themselves upon, the
Republican party.
The cold and clammy arms of “caste,” in which the Republican party was
encircled, doomed it to defeat. All of the great virility with which it
was endowed when, as Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party, it represented
the “Common People,” was crushed out of it by this venomous python,
so that when it faced, in 1892, the arrayed resentment of the “Common
People,” it was but a shapeless, disfigured form, in which all the
beauty, purity, and strength with which it was endowed at the time of
its creation had ceased to exist. Had the Republican party retained
the vigor that marked its young manhood before it became suffocated by
this mass of putrid matter, called aristocracy, there would have been
another story to tell of the election November 8, 1892.
Had the argument been well defined, as it was in the last election,
with parties of equal merit in the eyes of the people, possessing
equally the virtues and spirit of the American people--had we arrayed
upon one side the Democratic party, with its oriflamme of “Free Trade,
State Banks, and No Force Bill,” and upon the other side marshaled the
Republican hosts under a leader like Lincoln, a man of the people, upon
whose standard should be written, “Protection for American Industries,
Sound Money Guaranteed by the Faith of the Nation, and Fair Election,”
can any one who is fair doubt as to what the issue would have been?
It was not, Novembers, 1892, a battle between the Republican party
and the Democratic party, and when journals like the New York _Sun_
would attempt to yoke the people’s will by party principles and party
traditions, they are merely preparing a harness of cobwebs, which
public opinion will tear asunder, and ring the death-knell of the
Democratic party in so doing.
The New York _World_, November 10th, publishes a remarkable editorial,
in which it recites, among other things, what this victory does _not_
mean. The editorial is given, because, if it be correct--and the New
York _World_ is certainly good authority--then it surely does not mean
a victory for the Democratic party, while it does mean a victory for
the “Common People,” the democratic masses, and such cries in future
as that of the New York _Sun_ against an income tax, because it is
contrary to the Democratic party, will be meaningless, inasmuch as the
Democratic party has not won this victory, and Grover Cleveland was not
elected President by the Democratic party.
Quoting from the New York _World_, whose editorial of November 10th
is printed herewith, these sentences occur: “This victory does not
mean Free Trade.” Then, does it mean “Tariff for revenue only”? which
is an expression in the Democratic platform, adopted in Chicago, and,
therefore, if this be a Democratic victory, it must mean what the
Democratic party pledged themselves to in their National Convention at
Chicago. “It does not mean,” says the New York _World_, “the unsettling
of industry nor the derangement of commerce.” Well, but how can we have
tariff for revenue only without unsettling industry and the derangement
of commerce? And, if it be a Democratic victory (by Democratic victory
is meant a victory of the Democratic party), we must have such laws
made and executed as will create a schedule of tariff for revenue only.
Quoting further from this editorial: “It does not mean disturbance of
what is sound in finance.” Then how can that portion of the Democratic
platform, adopted at Chicago, be made consistent with the legislation
in the future regarding the finances of the country? If the tax of
ten per cent. upon State banks be withdrawn, and thus State banks be
enabled to issue their notes, how will it be possible to prevent “a
disturbance” of whatever is sound in finance?
Now, if this be a victory of the Democratic party, such a repeal of the
ten per cent. penalty tax upon State banks must be enacted--that is, if
the Democratic party intends to keep faith with its constituents.
FOR THE GOOD OF ALL.
“If there are honest Republicans who really believe what their
party journals and speakers have told them--who fear that
Democratic success in the nation threatens danger or disturbance
to business--to them we say: Your fears are idle.
“The majority of the people of the United States, represented by
the great Democratic majority, do not mean injury to themselves.
This country is their country. Its business interests are their
interests. Its prosperity is their prosperity. Its honor and
welfare are their concern.
“This victory does not mean Free Trade. It does not mean the
unsettling of industry nor the derangement of commerce. It does
not mean disturbance of whatever is sound in finance.
“The President-elect is the very embodiment of conscientious
caution. He is preëminently conservative. His administration
will mean economy, reform, retrenchment in every branch of the
Government.
“The victory does mean putting a stop to the riot of extravagance,
profligacy, and corruption. It means the end of the reign of
Plutocracy. It means relief from the monstrous robbery of the
masses by unjust and unnecessary taxation. It means a veto
upon the looting of the Treasury and the hideous waste of
hundreds--nay, thousands--of millions of dollars in the course of
a generation by unmerited pensions. It does mean lower and juster
taxes and larger freedom of trade. It does mean good money, and
good money only.
“Our party has triumphed under the happy union of a great issue
and a great man. The Republic is stronger for this Democratic
victory. The Republicans themselves will be more prosperous, and
in the end happier because of it. Government of the people is
safe in the hands of a great majority of the people.”
In the concluding paragraph of the above editorial of the _World_, we
read (and those of us who live in New York State, with considerable
astonishment): “Our party has triumphed under the happy union of a
great issue and a great man.” To start with, the issue seems to have
been, judging from all of the preceding, Tariff on one side, Free Trade
on the other; National banks on one side, State banks on the other; and
Force Bill as a kind of “Flyer.”
With regard to these “great issues,” there was a lack of unanimity
among even the great newspapers of the Union, at the head of which,
justly and properly, we put the Free Trade New York _World_ and
the Protection New York _Sun_. With regard to the “great man” (and
there is no attempt to disparage in any manner the President-elect
of this nation), it seems somewhat peculiar to use the term “great”
to designate that citizen of the Union who has been selected as
chief magistrate of the nation, in view of the fact that he had been
dubbed the “Stuffed Prophet” by that great organ of Democracy, the
New York _Sun_, and was so heralded through the Union for more than
a year before his nomination. And when four years ago, he sought
re-election, the New York _World_ killed this “great man” by faint
praise. His popularity and greatness did not seem to be recognized
by the seventy-two members of the Democratic National Committee
who represented the State of New York, in the National Democratic
Convention at Chicago, as these representatives protested against the
nomination of their “great” fellow-citizen, declaring that he could
not be elected if nominated; and they represented the politics of the
Democratic party; and they told the truth as far as the Democratic
party was concerned.
By reason of his greatness or his popularity, he could not have been
elected. But when he came before the people, as representing the great
mass of the “Common People,” then he became great, but only great in so
far as he represented the greatness of the people.
The politicians of New York State pronounced the verdict of all that
which is controlled by politicians in the State of New York, when
they declared it as their opinion that Grover Cleveland could not
carry the State of New York. They were simply saying what they, the
politicians, in their little political way, could do. But when Grover
Cleveland became the representative of the “Common People,” then the
“Common People” made him great--far greater than could the politician
have done--and he has sailed into office on the favorable wind of the
opinion of the “Common People.” His greatness is only the reflected
greatness of those whom he represents. Inherently, greatness in Grover
Cleveland may exist, but certainly no evidence of it has yet been
given. He is great to-day because of the great support that has been
given him by the will and pleasure of the “Common People.” He is no
more great of himself and in himself than would be the rifle in the
hands of an expert marksman. The masses, the “Common People,” represent
the marksman. Grover Cleveland is merely the weapon which they will
use to bring down the animal which has been devouring their substance,
destroying their homes and happiness. The weapon, even though it be
the rifle of Davy Crockett, would become impotent in the hands of the
weak and inexperienced. The people are powerful, and they will render
great the weapon which they wield. The people are skillful. For many
centuries, as the preceding chapters recount, in the history of all
nations, the people have become trained and skillful in the use of
their power.
The President-elect has it within his reach to achieve greatness as
the willing and trusty weapon of the masses, the “Common People,” by
whom he was elected. And wherever the “Common People,” the masses, have
found a weapon untrustworthy, they have cast it aside as readily and
quickly, and secured another, as the ordinary hunter of the wild animal
would do.
The “Common People” have been engaged in a chase after this wild
animal, this destructive beast, called “caste,” sham aristocracy, and
over-accumulation of wealth. They imagine that they have secured a good
weapon in the man of their choice, November last. And, should it become
evident that they have been mistaken, his greatness will cease to be as
soon as the great power by which he is supported falls away from him.
It is not well to call a man great until he is dead. Had Benedict
Arnold died after the Battle of Saratoga, he would have gone down in
history as one of the great heroes of the Revolution.
Grover Cleveland was elected, contrary to the expectations expressed
(and expressed honestly) by the seventy-two most influential Democratic
politicians of the State of New York. He carried the State represented
by these sagacious politicians by more than 40,000 majority. And it was
all done, independently of the politicians, by the will of the “Common
People”--not by the Democratic party. For upon what issue, possibly,
could converts have been made by the politicians?
From the standpoint of politicians, and from past experience, that
eminent Democratic orator, the Hon. Bourke Cockran, was perfectly
correct when he stated in Chicago, in his famous speech before the
National Democratic Convention, that Grover Cleveland was the most
popular man in the country on every day in the year, except election
day. This was said, honestly and sincerely, by a leading light of the
political world of the Democratic party. Mr. Cockran could not foretell
that the great Democratic masses, the “Common People,” would utilize
any one who might happen to be chosen as the weapon of destruction
which the “Common People” would use in the chase after the object of
their resentment, that brute, represented by “Chappie” on Broadway, the
Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Goulds--the sham aristocracy.
Mr. Cockran has, since the election, doubtless realized that, as a
politician of the State of New York, he is justly eminent for his
sagacity and wisdom, as well as his eloquence; but, as a judge of what
the PEOPLE will do, he is as unreliable in his judgment as the veriest
babe in swaddling clothes.
He was talking in Chicago, as was the honorable Governor of the State
of New York, and others, for the Democratic party, which COULD NOT and
DID NOT elect Grover Cleveland. When, therefore, after the election
of Grover Cleveland, that Democratic party, as represented by the
New York _Sun_, assumes to dictate to the party of the people, who,
independently of the Democratic party as a political organization, but
acting only as “Common People,” have elected a chief magistrate and
representatives to represent them, the “Common People,” it is simply
bidding for the extinction of the power of that political party known
as the Democratic party, with whom, on this occasion, the “Common
People” have acted, for purposes of their own, and to achieve ends
which they consider desirable.
Should it be assumed by those elected November 8, 1892, to represent
the people in the government of the nation, that they were elected
because they were Democrats--or, rather, members of the Democratic
political party--then it would become their duty, as honest men,
pledged to support the views entertained and expressed by the makers
of the platform of the Democratic National Convention at Chicago, to
repeal all existing tariff laws, until the amount received from duties
would only be sufficient to defray the expenses of the Government. In
other words, having a tariff for revenue only, and not for protection;
but, inasmuch as the expenses of the Government are as great or greater
to-day than its income, it would mean that the “Common People,” who
voted for the nominee of the Democratic party, have simply swapped
horses in crossing a stream, without benefiting themselves in any
particular. The Government must have money to defray its expenses, and
if, practically, the present tariff is only furnishing a sufficient
revenue to defray the expenses of the Government, where is it possible
to reform it, so as to lighten the burden of taxation now imposed
upon the “Common People”? This is all upon the assumption that the
Democratic party claim that it was that peculiar plank in their
platform, “Tariff for Revenue Only,” that gave them the victory last
November. Then the tariff would remain as it is, as we need every
dollar of the income of the nation to defray its expenses.
Should the Democratic party assume that it was that peculiar part of
their platform which demanded a repeal of the ten per cent. penalty
tax for the State banks, then, by the repeal (to which they are
pledged) of the said penalty tax of ten per cent., State banks would
spring into existence, issuing their own notes, as was the practice
before the National Banking Act was enacted. What great good to the
“Common People” could grow out of this change in the currency of the
nation (that would apparently be the only thing, if the Democratic
party is convinced that its nominees were elected because of the
virtues contained in their platform), that can possibly be carried
into execution by the incoming Government? The suggestion of an
increase in the internal revenue tax levied upon alcohol would not be
productive of an increase in the revenue derived from this source, as
past experience, both in this country and in Europe, has demonstrated
that increased taxes upon any article decrease the consumption of said
article, and, therefore, decrease the revenue.
The perplexing question, therefore, that will confront those who
believe that the DEMOCRATIC PARTY was elected to power, is: How can we
adhere to the platform of the Democratic party, and at the same time
benefit, in the slightest degree, the people of the nation? For even
the most egotistical Democrat will understand, and does understand,
that the people of the nation, having placed in the hands of those men
whom they have chosen, the entire control of the affairs of the nation;
that they, the “Common People” of the nation, will not be satisfied
with merely holding things as they are. That would be merely a shifting
of scenes without changing the play on the stage of public affairs.
Something must be done, in addition to the mere putting out of one set
of office-holders of the Republican party and putting in another set of
office-holders of the Democratic party. The “Common People” of America,
the masses, are not office-seekers. They desire something more than
the mere changing of the political faith of their Postmasters, United
States Marshals, and other Federal office-holders.
If the Democratic party, now in power, fails to do anything except
shift the scene and change office-holders, then the Democratic party
will be relegated to that dismal slough of despondency, at the next
election, in which the Republican party is now submerged. The people
will elect, by some political name, a party who will perform something
for the people’s benefit.
It is almost impossible to reduce the tariff without running the
government into debt. It is impossible to increase the internal revenue
tax to supply the deficiency. Then, if the Democratic party believes
in lower duties and decreased tariff, what other course is open for
it? What other course is fair to the poor “Common People” of America
than to pass an income tax to supply the needs of the nation? It is
perfectly useless to talk about abolishing the pensions to any amount
sufficient to create any perceptible impression upon the decrease in
the income of the nation, should the tariff be materially reduced. It
is utterly worthless to argue the subject. The time is wasted. Pension
frauds--if any exist--should be at once abolished. But any attempt to
repeal any existing legislation with regard to the pensions of the old
soldiers of the Union would simply be met by such a howl of indignation
as to make a step of that nature impracticable. Whatever sums have
been given, and whatever obligations have been incurred, by the Federal
Government in the last four years (except frauds which may possibly
have been perpetrated), must continue to exist until time shall have
relieved the Federal Government from its obligations to the old
veterans of the Civil War.
We must have money for internal improvements, for our navy, and for
our pensions. We cannot procure the money if we materially reduce
the tariff, except in one way, and that is by an income tax, which
necessarily must be a graded one. The people of America will not stand
a general income tax, wherein one man with an income of a million
dollars per annum can pay two per cent., and the man whose income is
only two thousand dollars per annum shall pay also the same percentage
upon his small income. That would be obviously unfair to the poor
man, to whom two per cent. from his small income would represent an
inconvenience to him greater than fifty per cent. would to the man with
an income of a million.
If the Democratic party assume to have won this victory, then let
them proceed, upon the platform adopted at Chicago, which will result
practically in nothing being accomplished. If Grover Cleveland has
been elected solely for his “greatness,” and by reason of his immense
personal popularity, then let him gather the Reform Club with one arm
and Tammany Hall with the other. This trinity of greatness, purity, and
brightness will be sufficient for his administration, but nothing will
be done.
If, as the facts are, or seem to be--and the vote indicates the
correctness of the position--Grover Cleveland and the Democratic
party have been put into power by the “Common People” because they
represented to the minds of the “Common People” the opposition to
“caste,” sham aristocracy, and great accumulation of wealth, and not
by the mugwumps and the kid-gloved gentlemen of the Reformed Club or
the Tammany Heelers, then, if Grover Cleveland and the Democratic party
recognize their election to be the result of the votes, not alone of
the faithful of the Democratic faith, but of the “Common People,” let
something be done that may enable the “Common People” to realize their
hopes and expectations--then, at the end of Grover Cleveland’s four
years of administration, he having performed the wishes of the “Common
People,” let us pronounce him GREAT.
If the Democratic party, with the President at its head, will now
utterly throw to the wind old traditions and principles of the
Democratic party, and give no heed to the howling of the Democratic
press, but comply with the mandates of the people, that they should be
relieved from this incubus which is crushing them--over-accumulation
of wealth, centralization of capital, and sham aristocracy; the only
possible way, without resorting to measures obnoxious to the American
mind--confiscation and like enactments--is by a graded income tax,
which will throw the burden of the Government where it belongs,--_i.
e._, upon the shoulders of those who have become fat and lusty by
feeding upon the blood of the nation. And, in proportion as the burden
of taxation is laid upon those ample shoulders, it may be lifted from
the crushed and suffering poor of the body politic.
The mere utterance and repetition of the word “reform” is meaningless.
_Saying_ the word does not make any reformation. When Grover Cleveland
was elected eight years ago, he was elected upon the “Reform” cry.
The people were then suffering from this “class” infliction, and they
gave vent to their feelings by the election of Cleveland. It had been
so often repeated that there was great corruption in the Republican
party, that the people expected a wonderful exposure of corruption and
a great reformation in the affairs of the nation. Nothing was done. No
corruption was exposed. The ledgers of the nation seemed to have been
accurately kept. No crime was unearthed, and nothing was accomplished.
The very plausible excuse was offered that the Republican party still
controlled the Senate of the United States, and made abortive any
attempt at reformation, or the accomplishment of any relief for the
“Common People.”
Now, upon this occasion, Grover Cleveland, after a vacation of four
years, has been called once again by the “Common People” to command the
Ship of State. Both mates and the whole crew have been placed under his
command. They believe of him what the New York _World_, November 13th,
here gives us:--
THE “STUFFED PROPHET.”
“The ‘Stuffed Prophet’--that is the nickname bestowed upon Mr.
Cleveland by the newspaper organ of plutocracy, which has for
years professed Democracy for the purpose of betraying it.
“The name was bestowed in derision. It was the favorite invention
of a malice which mistakes insolence for wit. It was intended for
ridicule, but, rightly viewed, it is a title to be worn as an
honor.
“It is an honor to Mr. Cleveland that he has never had or merited
the approval of the New York _Sun_. It is a credit to him that
that journal is chief among those to whom General Bragg referred
when he said, ‘We love him for the enemies he has made.’
“And there is fitness in the nickname, too.
“Mr. Cleveland was a true prophet when he set the face of
Democracy towards reform, foreseeing that the country would
in due time demand it. He had the gift of the seer, when at
the Washington Centennial banquet, he avowed his unfaltering
confidence in the wisdom of the people who had so recently
overthrown his cause, and his assurance that they would soon come
to a juster view, and vote down the policy of monopoly and class
privilege and oppressive taxation. They have done it this year.
“And this prophet is stuffed.
“He is stuffed with the virtue which accepts public office only as
a public trust;
“Stuffed with the honor which refuses to ‘palter in a double
sense’ with words, or even to keep silence when--as at the time
of the silver craze--frank utterance seems to promise only
destruction for his own and his party’s ambitions;
“Stuffed with sturdy common-sense which ‘sees clear and thinks
straight,’ and so commends itself to the ‘plain people’ who love
the right and seek justice;
“Stuffed with a foresight unsurpassed by that of any statesman of
our time;
“Stuffed with a purity of patriotism which views place and power
merely as opportunities to render service to the country;
“Stuffed with unprecedented majorities, the eager tributes of the
people in testimony of their approval;
“Stuffed with the confidence of his countrymen, who have called
him again into their service in order that wrongs may be righted,
oppressions overthrown, errant tendencies checked, and that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people may
not perish from the land;
“Stuffed with the Democracy that means all this, for truly--
“The next President _is_ a Democrat.”
If, as we hope, “Grover Cleveland is stuffed with the virtue which
accepts public office only as a public trust,” then he will accept his
office as President of the United States as a trust from the “Common
People” of our country, and not from the political party who nominated
him,--_i. e._, the Democratic party; he will accept the trust confided
in him by the Democracy in its broadest sense--the “Common People” of
the land.
If he be “stuffed with honor,” in accepting that trust, he will do so
with full cognizance of the fact that in honor bound he is to acquit
himself in his high office to which he has been called by the “Common
People” of America, as will best satisfy them, and remove those crying
evils which call aloud from the hearthstone of every Common Man in
America. The most objectionable of all the evils, and the one most
prominently considered by the voter last November, was the existence of
an attempted class distinction in our country.
If he is “stuffed,” as God grant he is, “with sturdy common-sense,
which sees clearly and thinks straight, and so commends itself to
the plain people who love the right and seek justice,” his sturdy
common-sense will teach him that he has been elected by the “plain
people,” and he will “think straight,” that the “plain people” want
such legislation and the execution of such legislation as may relieve
them--not in pocketbook, but in feeling--from the assumption of a
superiority upon the part of the wealthy worshipers at the throne of
“caste,” and to that end a graded income tax will be productive of more
good and be more efficacious in the accomplishment of an object so near
to the “plain people who love right and seek justice,” that it made the
plain “Common People” forget old affiliations last November--old ties
and associations--and vote for the President-elect and the political
party by which he was nominated.
If he be “stuffed with a purity of patriotism which views place and
power merely as opportunities to render service to the country,” then
when his term of office shall have expired, having rendered that
service to the country, and the “Common People” of the country, to do
which he was elected President by the “plain people,” he will have
endeared himself so to the patriotic “plain people” of the land, having
faithfully kept the trust reposed in him by the people, that his name
shall go down in the records of the nation associated with the names
of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln.
Grover Cleveland is certainly “stuffed” with the confidence of his
countrymen, who have called him again into their service, in order
that wrongs may be righted, oppression overthrown, arrant tendencies
checked, and that “the government of the people, by the people, and
for the people, may not perish from the land.” Let us hope that
this confidence is well placed, and that now, when he may call to
his assistance both branches of the national legislature, he will
right those wrongs, and overthrow the oppression of which the people
complain; and the chiefest of these is the accumulation of vast sums of
money in the hands of families and persons, which creates a danger to
“the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
The people do believe that he is “stuffed with true democracy, in
its broadest sense,” else they never would have elected him. And how
can that true democracy be exhibited better than by suggesting such
legislation as will cast the burden of taxation upon that class who
can so easily bear it--that class which have rendered themselves so
entirely obnoxious to the “Common People” of America, those “plain
people, who love the right and seek justice,” and who, loving the
right, have sought justice by calling him to the position of Executive
of the nation? How can Grover Cleveland better right the wrongs of the
“Common People” than by urging, as chief of the party in power, the
passage of a graded income tax, which would certainly meet with the
approval of the “Common People,” by whom he was elected, that thereby
funds might be furnished for defraying the expenses of the nation, and
thus relieving the burden cast upon the “Common People,” at the same
time preventing a continuation of this much-to-be-feared accumulation
of wealth in the hands of a few in our country.
A double object would be thus accomplished: First, the primary
consideration for which they voted, the abolition of “caste,” sham
aristocracy, would be brought about by preventing vast incomes being
enjoyed by individuals or families, and the consequent idleness,
luxury, selfishness, sensuality, and snobbishness attendant upon the
enjoyment of vast incomes, where the recipient remains in idleness.
Second, it would afford a cure and relief for the present excessive
system of taxation which falls so heavily upon the general mass of the
people. Thus, at one time, and by one measure (perfectly consistent
with the will of the people by whom he was elected), Grover Cleveland
could right most of the wrongs, and give relief to the “Common People,”
the “plain people” (so called by the New York _World_), by whom he has
been chosen as chief.
There is no need to mince matters upon this subject. It is plainly
and obviously the duty of Grover Cleveland to give some outward and
visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace which is in him. There
is no time to waste in this matter. Grover Cleveland understands too
well that he was not elected by the Democratic party; that he will have
the support of the party of the people, call it by what name you will.
The Populists, representing, as they do, some of the grievances of the
“plain” “Common People,” will act with Grover Cleveland’s party, the
party of the “Common People.”
The New York _World_ furnishes an admirable article upon the subject,
“Why Are They Natural Allies?” speaking of the Populists. Because
they are the party of the plain “Common People,” who, along with
the Democratic party, will control the legislation of the nation,
Grover Cleveland represents this army of “Allies,” as surely as did
Wellington, at the Battle of Waterloo, and the “Common People” will
expect him to defeat, “horse, foot, and dragon,” the enemy--the sham
aristocracy, the representatives of “caste,” and the monopoly of money,
who have, like Napoleon, carried devastation and destruction into our
country; just as Napoleon did into every country of Europe. Grover
Cleveland will have the assistance of these “Natural Allies,” the
Populists, which is indicated in the timely article below, from the New
York _World_, of December 15, 1892:--
“The Populists in the next Senate will be the natural allies of
the Democrats on the most important matters that will come before
Congress.
“The Democrats and the Populists fused in several of the Western
States. They will together control several of the legislatures.
The third party has no affiliation with the Republicans. It is
composed in the main of voters who have become disgusted with
Republican rule.
“The Republicans cannot rely upon retaining their grip on the
Senate by the votes of the men who have overthrown them at the
West.”
If Grover Cleveland and the party which nominated him will but once
recognize, _and at once_, that they did not triumph by reason of
the conversion of old Republicans to the doctrines enunciated in
the Democratic platform, at Chicago, but will now promptly come to
the conclusion, which is so obvious, that they were elected by the
“Common People,” for the plain purpose of righting those wrongs which
the people have endured in silence, then it will be impossible for
Republican newspapers to claim that they are “at sea without a chart.”
They are “at sea without a chart” at present, because the Democratic
party, under the whip and spur of Democratic newspapers, driving
them to cling on to Democratic principles, and to hold to Democratic
doctrine, will prevent Grover Cleveland and the Democratic party from
taking any action which would furnish relief to the people. The New
York _Sun_, under the able and magnificent management of Hon. Charles
A. Dana, cries for Protection and against the Income Tax; while that
most potential newspaper, the New York _World_, also Democratic, under
the control of the Hon. Joseph Pulitzer, inveighs against Protection
and in favor of an Income Tax. Torn by the dissensions in its own
ranks, the Democratic party, if it attempts to cling on to the old
ideas, will simply do nothing; _and that is what the people fear_.
Now is the occasion for Grover Cleveland to prove himself to be a
“great” man. Now is the time for those representatives, elected by
the will of the people, to demonstrate to the people that they are
willing servants, and that “public office is a public trust”; that, as
trustees of the will of the people, they will comply with the request
of the people. And the request has gone forth to give relief to the
people from this tumor which has grown upon the body politic--“caste,”
snobbery, and sham aristocracy, and the attendant evil which was the
cause of the tumor--excessive taxation and class legislation. Throw
old doctrines and principles of the Democratic party to the winds.
Cleveland, the next House of Representatives, and the Senate of the
United States were not elected and selected upon old principles,
which were part of the constitution of the Democratic party. They
were elected upon a broad democracy, and if they will adopt the will
of the people, their wants and needs, and apply such remedies as the
people may demand, then will it be impossible for Republican writers,
who wield a trenchant pen like that of the Hon. John A. Cockerill, to
truthfully say: “The incoming party is at sea without a chart.”
The New York _World_, of December 11th, says of Grover Cleveland’s
speech, that its generalities are eminently sound and patriotic, and
that he asserts that the people can be trusted and that they know what
they want, which is here given:--
“Those who looked for any definite statement of his policy from
the President-elect in his speech at the Reform Club banquet last
night will be disappointed. Mr. Cleveland evidently thinks, and
probably correctly, that the time for this has not yet come.
“But Mr. Cleveland’s generalities are eminently sound and
patriotic. Especially excellent is his sturdy assertion of the
good Democratic doctrine that the people can be trusted, that
they know what they want, and are entitled to have their will
respected. Contrasted with the current Republican talk that the
voters have been befooled for three years and are bent on turning
the progress of their country backward, Mr. Cleveland’s robust
patriotism and faith are eminently refreshing.
“The spirit in which he contemplates the responsibility soon to
be placed upon him and his party is equally admirable. There
is neither shrinking nor boastfulness, but a calm courage
characteristic of the man and befitting the occasion. It is
to be hoped that Mr. Cleveland’s admonition to and defence of
economy, as something about which ‘there is nothing shabby or
discreditable,’ will not be lost upon the present Congress.”
This fills us with hope, we “Common People,” who regard the _World_ as
a leading light in the Democratic firmament of journalism. It is like a
bow of promise set in the heavens of the future, and especially when,
upon the succeeding day, the _World_, which voices the sentiments of
the Democratic party, publishes the following:--
“A monopoly organ declares that an income tax is ‘undemocratic.’
It says that ‘the only excuse for the income tax was that it was a
war measure,’ and asks: ‘What excuse can be given for reimposing
it?’
“The excuse of necessity. The government is confronted with the
condition of an empty treasury and a demand for tariff reduction
twice made by the people. Either one of these things may make new
taxes necessary. Combined, they are almost certain to do so.
“With an annual expenditure of over $220,000,000 due to the war
(for pensions and interest upon the public debt) a choice in war
taxes would fall on a graded income tax upon every principle of
economy and justice.
“It is surely Democratic to tax luxuries rather than necessaries,
superfluities rather than essentials. As one of the speakers at
the Reform Club said: ‘Any tax on what men have is better than a
tax on what men need.’ It cannot be undemocratic to tax those who
are best able to pay, to apportion public burdens in a manner to
cause the least hardship to the greatest number.
“A graded income tax is the coming tax if the expenditures of the
government are to continue anywhere near the present mark.”
It is with hope and trustfulness that we regard the future.
Here is a spectacle presented before us by two of the Democratic
newspapers of New York City--the stronghold of Democracy in the Union
is New York City--one arrayed on the side of Protection and against a
graded income tax, the other, of equal prominence and position, arrayed
on the side of Free Trade and a graded income tax. Now, let the members
of the Democratic party view this picture presented to the “Common
People” of America, and ask themselves: For what did the people vote
November 8, 1892? Did they vote with the New York _Sun_ when they voted
for Grover Cleveland, or did they vote with the New York _World_ when
they cast their ballots for the President-elect? Common-sense, common
reason, would indicate to the most superficial that they voted neither
with the New York _Sun_ nor the New York _World_, nor the Democratic
party.
This is not a victory of the Democratic party! And it cannot be said
too forcefully that this victory _does not belong_ to the Democratic
party! It is a VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE, who demanded a suppression and
an extinguishing of the wrongs that had been inflicted upon them. They
voted out West with the Populist party on the same basis as they voted
with the Democratic party in the East and South. It was anything--call
it by what name you please--so that that thing, when elected, should be
a party of the people.
Don’t insist upon a revivification of the doctrines of the Democratic
party. The people have spoken for themselves, and their voices must
be heard through the representatives selected by them in the halls of
Congress. During the next four years, Grover Cleveland must execute
the WILL OF THE PEOPLE. He has been elected by no party. The Populists
will be his “natural allies,” because they represent the People, as
he does. He need not remain “at sea without a chart” one day or hour,
only follow the will of the people! They have placed their heels of
disapprobation upon “caste” and sham aristocracy and the attempt to
engraft it upon American society. They have placed the nail erect and
have given Grover Cleveland the hammer. Now let him drive it home!
And we will stud the coffin of dead “caste” so full of nails that the
shaking skeleton, borrowed from Europe, will never have a resurrection
in our country. There is only one effectual way to accomplish the end
desired--the eternal entombment of this multi-lived creature--and
that is by the infliction of such an income tax as will prevent the
possibility of the existence of a thing like “Chappie” on Broadway,
and make America an undesirable field for the coroneted sportsmen of
Europe to hunt in for matrimonial game, and prevent the accumulation of
fortunes that would arouse a feeling of cupidity in the weazen chests
of the puppified lords and degenerate descendants of Europe’s nobility,
whose greatest pride is in the “Bar Sinister” in their armorial
bearings.
Why is delay in the execution of the will of the people necessary?
Grover Cleveland is thoroughly convinced that he was elected, not by
the Democratic party, but by the people at large. The first step in
the right direction would be this--as soon as Grover Cleveland assumes
the office of President of the United States--(that is, President
of the nation, by the will of the “Common People”), to then and at
once take such steps as would quickly afford the relief the “Common
People” expect of him and his administration. Will the cry of the
Republican newspapers, that “the Democratic party will do nothing,”
prove correct? It is only for four years that this man of the people,
Grover Cleveland, can occupy the position to which he has been called
by the “plain” people of America. After his induction into office, the
“Common People” will expect that not one single day will be wasted
in the execution of their wishes. “Twice in the election of Congress
the people have decreed a reform in taxation and other changes in the
policy of the government.” And the people will not permit any further
delay in the matter. The people, in the most pronounced manner, have
exhibited their determination to bring about certain changes and a
certain kind of reformation. Every hour that it is delayed is pregnant
with danger to the Democratic party.
The closing sentence taken from the New York _World_, of December
10th, seems full of meat--“The way to reform is to reform.” All the
platitudes and promises ever uttered would not be a reformation. The
people, by an overwhelming majority, have decreed that there shall be
a reformation in taxation, and with regard to the social life of the
American people, which has been made unhappy by the introduction of
foreign mannerisms. The way to begin is to _begin_, and the sooner the
better.
The calling of an extra session of Congress is but a minor detail
where the will of sixty-five million people has been expressed in
the positive manner that it was on November 8th, 1892. The great
Democratic dailies of the Union, like Kilkenny cats, are fighting over
little matters, seemingly losing sight entirely of the truth of the
case, _i. e._, that this is not a Democratic victory, but a victory
of the people. And the sooner the wrongs of which the people complain
are righted, so much sooner will end the sorrow, sufferings and the
oppression of the people. Whether there should be an extra session or
not, it is hardly worth while for two great dailies like the New York
_World_ and New York _Herald_ to quarrel over. The people have said: It
is well that certain things be done. “Then, if it be well that it be
done, it is well that it be done quickly.”
In concluding this chapter, it is desirable to have it distinctly
understood that this volume was not written or intended as a Democratic
aftermath campaign argument. If it be incomprehensible with the mass
of the people who may read this book, that it was written from a broad
democratic standpoint, and not from a Democratic party standpoint, that
it is to be regretted. It has not been the aim of the author to fall
prostrate at the feet of the Hon. Grover Cleveland, the President-elect
of the nation, further than to believe and trust in his promises and
integrity, and his manliness of character, and to await the result
of his actions, with regard to the will of the people, pronounced
the 8th day of November, 1892, in their selection of him as their
representative. Should the Hon. Grover Cleveland, President-elect of
the Union, by the will of the “Common, ‘plain’ People” of America,
prove himself to be all that the people believe, should he fulfill
the trust reposed in him, as did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson,
and Abraham Lincoln, then with earnestness and sincerity would the
author lend his voice to the anthem that would go up in his praise from
the mouths of the “Common People,” saying: “Well done, thou good and
faithful servant; great hast been thy trust, and in such manner hast
thou executed the trust that thy name shall be handed down, in the
records of history, to be read by future generations of Americans as
THE GREAT GROVER CLEVELAND.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
NOT A DEFEAT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S REPUBLICAN PARTY.
The “Grand Old Party,” which sprang from American intelligence and the
advancement of civilization, fully armed, like Minerva from the brain
of Jupiter!
That transcendent glory which will ever surround the name of the
Republican party with a halo, was not forever submerged beneath the
flood of indignant votes, November 8, 1892. That party which, by its
deeds, shall ever live in the grateful recollection of the American
heart, was not vanquished in the fight November last.
The symmetry, beauty, and virtues so pre-eminent in the party of
Abraham Lincoln in 1860, will ever present a spectacle for the
admiration of the “plain” “Common People” of America. They loved the
Republican party in 1860, and cast their votes for it because it
represented them--the plain “Common People”; because the candidate of
the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, was one of them, the “Common
People”; because in the right hand of the Republican party was carried
the standard of _equality and emancipation_; because in their
standard-bearer, Abraham Lincoln, the plain people recognized a typical
man of the “Common People.” “Mudsillism” was synonymous to them with
the term “Common People.” The industrial and laborial North was aroused
to righteous indignation by the assumption of a social superiority on
the part of the cavaliers, the believers in “caste,” in the South.
The Republican party, led by that wonderful creation of the American
soil and the air of freedom, Abraham Lincoln, won the battle of the
equality of man in 1861-65. Following still the guiding star which had
left its reflected glory upon the horizon even after it had descended
into the tomb made by the assassin, the people of the Union elected the
victorious general, Ulysses S. Grant, to the office of Chief Executive
of the nation. Believing in and trusting the man who had been a friend
to Abraham Lincoln, when he was surrounded by a multitude of dangers,
they cheerfully re-elected the victorious General Grant to be the
President of the people for a second term.
Slowly, but none the less surely, had been going on, during General
Grant’s administration, the disintegration of those principles that
made the party of Abraham Lincoln _great_ in the eyes of the “Common
People” of the Union. After twice enjoying the exalted position of
Chief Magistrate of the nation, General Grant was called upon to
surrender his office to a successor. So great had been the inroads
of decay upon that sterling honesty of the Republican party--that
Republican party which had been planted by the loving hands of Lincoln
in the breasts of the American people--that President Hayes succeeded
General Grant, as a Republican President, only by concessions made in
the interests of peace by a great statesman, Samuel J. Tilden.
The weakening influence of the barnacles growing upon that stalwart
tree of Republicanism, and which had been washed there by the ocean
tide of prosperity that had surged upon our nation, was felt in
the campaign between Hayes and Tilden. And let all good Americans,
Republicans as well as Democrats, uncover their heads in speaking of a
man like Tilden, who was a man of the people, thought of the people,
and of the horrors of civil war. Each succeeding administration tended
but to weaken the hold of that good old Republican party, that Grand
Old Party! (and it gives us pleasure to say it) upon the hearts of
the American people, because the barnacles which had clung on to the
life-giving roots of the stalwart oak of Republicanism and the Grand
Old Party--those barnacles of sham aristocracy, believers in “caste”
and class distinction, the wealthy--had managed to sap the strength of
the vigorous young tree planted by Abraham Lincoln, until, deformed,
it presented a spectacle obnoxious to the eyes of the “Common People”
of America.
The first decisive evidence of the dissatisfaction of the people was
given in the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884.
While Burchard, with that remarkable alliteration, “Rum, Romanism, and
Rebellion,” is accredited with having caused the defeat of James G.
Blaine, the impression made upon the “Common People” by the spectacle
of that dinner of millionaires, called the “Belshazzar feast,” at which
the nominee of the Republican party, James G. Blaine, occupied a seat,
was much greater than the howling of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” by
an obscure preacher.
The Republican party had ceased to represent to the minds of the plain
“Common People” what it had originally represented. There had grown
upon that party the fruit of evil, in the shape of a moneyed class, who
assumed to be better than the plain “Common People” of America. Hence,
James G. Blaine, with all his personal popularity, magnetism, and
magnificent record, was unable to secure, from the ranks of the “Common
People,” the votes necessary to elect him President.
The defeat of Grover Cleveland by President Harrison was brought about
(and there can be no doubt of it) largely by the use of money, secured
as contributions from the moneyed class to perpetuate the control of
the Republican party in the Federal Government, thinking that by so
doing the power and assumption of social superiority upon the part of
believers in “caste,” who cared nothing about the principles of the
original Abraham Lincoln Republican party, and who were as far beneath
it in patriotism, honesty, and truth as the earth is beneath the
heavens, would also be perpetuated.
There is not a shadow of doubt, and even the most prejudiced slave of
political “bossism” will be forced to admit, that President Harrison
has filled his high office with dignity; that he is an honest,
patriotic, representative American. He has kept faith with the American
public, as far as was possible for him to do so, in the execution
of the laws enacted by the legislative bodies of the nation. His
renomination was but the natural consequence of his administration.
The Republican party certainly entered the campaign of 1892 opposed
by a divided Democratic press, a divided Democratic party, upon the
supposed and alleged great issue of the campaign--that is, Protection
and Free Trade.
To illustrate that point, compare the New York _Sun_, believing in
Protection, with the New York _World_, believing in Free Trade.
The American people for intelligence will average as highly as the
people of any other nation, but they are not all political economists.
They had not, even during the four years and with all “the campaign of
education,” become sufficiently instructed to form a decided opinion
upon the information acquired by them with regard to the questions of
political economy involved in the discussion of Protection and Free
Trade.
It is perfectly ridiculous to hear it asserted that the people of the
United States voted against the Republican party in sufficient numbers
to create a political revolution by reason of the fact that they had
learned sufficient to become convinced, founding their conviction upon
information and reason, that Free Trade was preferable to Protection.
The average American voter would be as lost in an argument upon the
subject of political economy as would a disputant regarding a legal
proposition who had never heard of Blackstone or Kent, because the
average American citizen has never read one line of Adam Smith, John
Stewart Mill, or, in fact, any of the hand-books of political economy.
The conclusion to be drawn from the assertion that the people of the
United States had become convinced that it was beneficial to them to
have Free Trade is groundless. The Republican party had certainly the
advantage in the argument, because, under the existing state of our
tariff laws, the country is and was prosperous, wages were higher, a
greater sum of money was deposited in the savings banks by the laboring
classes than ever before in the history of our country. Now, these good
things, representing a prosperous condition, actually existed and do
exist under the Protection policy of the Republican party. It is hard
to believe that the mass of our fellow-citizens would be led away by
the simple desire for an “experimental change.” It is hard to convince
any man (when you select an individual) that he shall forsake a
business or occupation which he knows furnishes him with a competency,
to embark into some new and untried venture, forsaking that which he
already knows furnishes him with a sufficiency, for that which is
speculative.
Now, this is exactly what the Republican party, as represented by the
Republican newspapers, is trying to preach as the cause of the defeat
of the Republican party last November. In other words, the press of the
Republican party assumes that, collectively, the people of the Union
are more utterly ignorant, stupid, and absurd than they would be when
acting as individuals, which, of course, is ridiculous.
It was not a question of the pocketbook with the masses. It was not a
question whether they were doing better by reason of the Protective
policy of the Republican party than they could hope to do under
the Free Trade policy enunciated by the Democratic party. It was a
clear-cut proposition: Shall we allow longer the accumulation of
money in the hands of a few families, who are assuming before us and
flaunting in our faces their claim to a social superiority, making a
sham aristocracy, “caste,” in our country? It was not the pocketbook,
for with regard to that proposition there can be no doubt that the
American characteristic, “shrewdness in business,” would have inclined
every voter to let well enough alone.
The Republican party and the principles enunciated at Minneapolis with
regard to Protection had certainly the best of the argument. From a
business standpoint, what was and is, is well. What may be in the
future, under the Free Trade theories of the Democratic party, from
a business standpoint, is problematical. But the voter remembered
the snubs, sneers, and insults inflicted upon his wife and family
by would-be social superiors, whom he associated in his mind, in an
unmistakable manner, with the Republican party.
It was not a defeat upon the principles of the Republican party. It
was a defeat of _class_, “caste,” and sham aristocracy. It was not a
defeat because of the pocketbook.
On November 5th, the _Mail and Express_, of New York City, published
the following editorial, which is absolutely truthful:--
BUSINESS AND POLITICS.
“Here it is the last week before the Presidential election, and so
sound are all the conditions that people seem to have little time
to talk politics. Never before in the history of the country has
business gone right on with so much more than usual activity for
the season. Money has been easy and the volume of exchanges, as
shown by the Clearing House returns, unprecedented for the season.
Anxiety over the result of next Tuesday’s election has neither
interfered with the ordinary trend of trade nor has it checked its
activity.
“The fact that wheat has this week sold at the lowest price ever
known at New York (73½ cents) must interest the farmer in the
cry of English cheap labor. If the Englishman comes to this
country because he can live better here, he increases the demand
for bread, and the farmer can certainly get a better return for
his produce when he sells it to a workingman at home instead of
sending it 3,000 miles across the ocean, paying freight room in a
foreign steamship to support a foreign workman.
“It is rather surprising that this cry should have been raised
just at this time. If the consumer and the producer are brought
closer together, is it not better for both? They save the cost of
the transfer from one to the other. If the English weaver can come
to this country and work, so that his product does not have to
cross the ocean, and then get his wheat, flour, and meal without
having to pay the additional cost, do not both profit? The country
is so large that we can well afford to increase its population
when we can reduce to a minimum the cost of the exchange of
necessary means of life.
“The market for iron is better all around, from the fact that
stocks are being taken up faster than ever at this season of the
year. This is due very largely to the even weather, which has been
so favorable to building projects, the number of working days in
October being probably more than in the same month for years, and
now, in the first week of November, work is going on just the same.
“This will be apparent to every one who has watched the progress
of work and seen new buildings reach the fifth or sixth story
when, if the season had been adverse, they might not have been
half as high at this time. The railroads have also contributed to
consumption, for they are forehanded in placing early orders for
the large increase in the equipment that they will have to have
for next year.
“The voluntary advance in wages by the Fall River manufacturers
is another suggestive indication. The South has had three years
of steadily increasing cotton crops. The country has not only
exported more than ever, but it has consumed more, and out of this
great crop the proportion spun and woven in the United States has
advanced even more rapidly. The figures will show that domestic
consumption has increased proportionately faster than the crops.
“There is no better proof of prosperity than the ability of the
people to buy clothes. Food they must have, but they can wear old
clothes. Now, the woolen factories are full of work, and yet,
thus late in the season, the orders are so large that the cotton
manufacturers make a second advance in wages within three months.
There is no idleness in the boot and shoe factories, and the
rubber mills are as fully occupied.
“The country never was more prosperous on the eve of election.”
It is impossible for a truthful man, who is not talking for the
benefit of “the galleries,” or as a political demagogue, to dispute
the facts recited in the above article in the _Mail and Express_.
That argument and the facts therein recited, ought to have had great
weight; but did they? No! And the reason? The _Mail and Express_ is
owned by Colonel Shepard--doubtless a most worthy gentleman--but,
unfortunately for any effect that might be created by the utterances
of Colonel Shepard; unfortunately for the influence looked for by
articles published in the _Mail and Express_ upon this occasion, it
is well and thoroughly understood that Colonel Shepard is a very
wealthy man, a son-in-law of the Vanderbilts; that he represents the
money power of the Vanderbilt family. The people of New York City
(and Colonel Shepard and the _Mail and Express_ is but an example)
said to Colonel Shepard, to the _Mail and Express_, in no hesitating
manner, November 8th, We will not dispute the facts that you publish
concerning our prosperity and the advantages that we enjoy under the
Protective policy. You appeal forcibly to our pocketbooks. But it is
now the turn of the people to say to Colonel Shepard, the _Mail and
Express_, and all the representatives of capital--The truth of your
argument, so far as our pocketbooks are concerned, to the contrary
notwithstanding, you, Colonel Shepard, representing that _class_ of
which your father-in-law was a prominent member, and to quote from his
magnificent rhetoric--you, Colonel Shepard, _Mail and Express_, and
representatives of “caste” and sham aristocracy, now in turn we say
it, “You be damned!” as Vanderbilt a few years ago said “The public be
damned.”
We have been Republicans, we, the “Common People,” until the party for
which we voted in 1860, and which, under the leadership of that great
Commoner, Abraham Lincoln, forever silenced the claim of the Southerner
to social superiority. We have been good Republicans until _you_ have
fostered and aggravated the ulcerous sore of a sham aristocracy,
defiling the healthy and vigorous body of the Republican party. You
may have the best of the argument on Protection; it may benefit our
pocketbooks, but we are not selling our birthright, the equality of
man, for a mess of pottage!
The _Mail and Express_, at great trouble, and, doubtless, expense,
furnished plausible excuses for the defeat of the Republican party, and
disliking to admit the _true cause_, for in admitting that true cause,
it would be necessary to hold the father-in-law of the proprietor
of the newspaper responsible for his share of this “Waterloo.” (In
fact, W. H. Vanderbilt was to the Republican party what Grouchy was
to Napoleon at Waterloo.) With great care did the _Mail and Express_,
saving no expense, ascertain the opinions of the various newspapers
in the State of New York, concerning the cause of the defeat of the
Republican party.
Its columns were filled with the opinions of editors throughout the
Empire State. Many and various were the reasons given. The defeat
was blamed upon the “stay-at-homes”; the defection of the farmers
on account of the McKinley Bill; the Saxton Ballot Law; a simple
desire for a “change”; lack of organization; and a few correspondents
intimated that the “Common People,” tired of accumulations of wealth,
voted the Democratic ticket in the hope of securing relief and equality
thereby.
Could not one editor have been found by the inquiring representatives
of the _Mail and Express_ who possessed sagacity sufficient, coupled
with enough frankness, to say, directly, that it was not against the
policy of the Republican party, their platform, nor candidate, that
the people voted November 8th, but that it was against that element
in society which the proprietor of the _Mail and Express_ represents
so ably as the son-in-law of W. H. Vanderbilt, the sham aristocracy,
snobbery, and the believers in “caste”?
It is not so much a matter of astonishment that the editors of
Republican newspapers should have misjudged with regard to the cause of
the social revolution as it is to find that eminently representative
American, General Benjamin Harrison, the candidate of the Republican
and the present President of the United States, giving expression to
ideas so erroneous as those accredited to him in an interview published
in the New York _World_, November 13, 1892.
The American people will always regard with kindly feeling the present
President of the United States, General Benjamin Harrison, as a citizen
of the Union, who was elevated to the position of Chief Executive of
the nation, and who has kept faith with those by whom he was elected.
It is well for a President, upon leaving the White House, to feel
that he carries with him into his reabsorption in the mass of the
people, the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. President
Harrison, personally, has the respect and admiration of every patriotic
American citizen in this broad land of ours. He may feel justly that
satisfaction which is the reward of services well rendered to the
Republic. Had his party, or, rather, the party which nominated him,
the Republican party, not been cursed with the crime of “caste,”
doubtless he would have been re-elected, for he enjoys the confidence,
irrespective of political affiliation, of each individual voter in the
Federal Union.
In the day of disaster to the party by which he had been nominated, in
the bewilderment arising from the overwhelming defeat of the Republican
party, President Harrison may reasonably be excused for his erroneous
judgment as to the cause of the disaster to the Republican party.
That he should seek for an excuse, standing upon the vantage ground
of truth itself, in the idea that the people of the Union had become
Free Traders, possibly may be justifiable. At the same time, President
Harrison is so thoroughly American that we would have expected a
nearer approach upon his part to the real cause of the defeat of the
Republican party.
That the Republican party had the best of the argument, so far as sound
finance is concerned, there can be no question or doubt. There lingers
yet, in the minds of many voters, recollections of the debased currency
in use prior to the National Banking Act, passed by the Republican
party. A bill issued now by a bank has the guarantee of the credit of
the Federal Government behind it. Such would not be the case should
the penalty tax of ten per cent. upon State banks be repealed. Every
dollar of currency to-day in use in America is worth a hundred cents.
And a lively picture to the contrary is presented by the experience
of those older citizens who endured all the inconveniences of a
State bank currency. The most ardent Democrat (meaning member of the
Democratic party) would hardly have temerity sufficient to assert that
the financial policy, as advocated by the Democratic platform, adopted
at the Chicago National Convention, is superior to the sound money
existing by reason of the legislation enacted under the Republican
administration of the finances of the Federal Government.
But the people said, November 8, 1892, it matters not whether the
currency be debased or not. We, the plain “Common People,” will not
be debased into social inferiority! It matters not whether there be
thousands of counterfeits in the currency of the community. We would
rather have counterfeited currency than counterfeited aristocracy! The
dollar to-day, guaranteed by the faith of the Federal Government,
may be worth a hundred cents, and we’ll make it worth only fifty
cents, as guaranteed by each State in the Union, but the position,
socially and otherwise, of each man and citizen of the Union must be
worth a _hundred cents_. And we are weary at the attempt made by sham
aristocrats to depreciate the value of that doctrine, which is dearer
to the American than dollars and cents--the EQUALITY OF MAN.
With regard to the Force Bill, the Republican party had the best of
the argument. Their platform, as adopted in Minneapolis, only indorsed
the idea of a fair, free, and honest election, all of which was
but the reiteration of part of that Rock of Ages for the patriotic
American--the Constitution of the United States. Can any man argue
that, as a good citizen of the Union, it is proper for him to believe
in anything other than a fair, honest election? If there be such, he
is not to be found in the ranks of the plain, common, honest people,
who absolutely abhor any fraud upon their franchise as citizens of the
United States.
So that, in point of fact, apparently the three great issues to be
decided in the last campaign by the American people were: Protection
_versus_ Tariff; National Banks _versus_ State Banks; Fair Elections
_versus_ Frauds on the Franchise.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the American people would have decided
that the Republican party should continue in control of the affairs
of the nation, especially when that Republican party had for its
standard-bearer a man who, like Benjamin Harrison, possessed the
confidence of the American people--a man in whom the American people
recognized every patriotic principle inherent in the breasts of the
common, plain people of America.
But the Republican party of 1892 had become lost in the mist arising
from the exhalations from the manure heap of sham aristocracy and
“caste.” Figures looming out of the gloom of the present, hardly
compare favorably with those giants who cultivated the soil in which
was planted the Republican oak tree.
Through the miasma arising from the rotting present of the Republican
party, the picture of Thomas Platt appears. In the pellucid atmosphere
of the Republican party of the past, we see the picture of Seward.
Amidst the odoriferous present we find the likeness of the skillful,
the Honorable Matthew S. Quay. Upon the clear sky of the past is
mirrored the majestic Roscoe Conkling.
Amidst the hurly-burly and charlatan parade of the present, we
perceive that prince of clowns and jesters, Chauncey M. Depew, king
of after-dinner speech-makers, the witty buffoon who represents the
princely Vanderbilts, the man who was never heard of except when
clothed, either in dress suit or imported English clothing. By the side
of this figure of the present, look back and see the picture of that
man of the Republican party who met Stephen A. Douglas on the stump in
Illinois, whose jests were filled with the meat of common-sense, whose
heart was an out-gushing spring of kindness towards his fellow-men,
the “Common People.” Place the present picture, Chauncey M. Depew, in
dress suit, supported by the Vanderbilts’ millions, beside the long,
angular figure of that Illinoisian, Abraham Lincoln, supported by the
people--but pause; this is sacrilege!
Republicans, you know why your party was defeated. Be frank; be brave;
be manly, and charge it upon the proper cause--“caste!” affectation!
sham aristocracy! degeneracy!
CHAPTER XXV.
THE POPULIST: THE “ALLIES.”--ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; THEREFORE, WITH THE
“COMMON PEOPLE.”
It does not seem to afford any great amount of pleasure for the
hide-bound members of the Democratic party, the thought that possibly
the Democratic party may become but a fifth wheel to the coach, and
they view with evident dislike the growing power of the Populist party.
Quoting from the New York _Sun_, of December 11th, that able
representative, in a journalistic way, of the Protection Democrats, we
print the following statements:--
WEAVER AND HIS MILLION VOTES.
“The Populists are naturally excited and encouraged by their
demonstration of numerical strength at the election of 1892. The
Populist view of the achievement, and the Populist interpretation
of its significance, are set forth in detail in the very
interesting summary of results printed in another part of this
paper. In brief, the claim is this:--
“One million votes in the South and West for the Weaver electors;
“Twenty-three electoral votes obtained by fusion or otherwise;
“Five Populist Senators and ten Populist Representatives in the
next Congress;
“Populist State Governments in Kansas, Colorado, and North Dakota,
and greatly increased Populist representation in the legislatures
of these and several other States;”
Which evidently furnishes no great amount of satisfaction to that
organ, which is essentially Democratic in a party sense.
Weaver, and his 1,000,000 votes, present the startling possibility
to the organ of the Democratic party, that perhaps the people, who
are members of that broader democracy, may be breaking away from the
traces of the party harness. It is a little harder to prognosticate
concerning future political events and manage the people, when they
escape from party traces. The million votes for Weaver represent that
part of the people who have become thoroughly exasperated by the manner
of that excrescence, “sham aristocracy,” on the Republican party, and
who, at the same time, were still unwilling to become harnessed in the
party-wagon controlled by the Democratic party. Thousands would have
been glad to vote with the Populists had that party not been filled
with all kinds of incongruities and “isms.” There was a curse on the
houses of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and the
people, exclaiming with Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet: “I am hurt;
a plague o’ both your houses! I am sped,” voted for Weaver and the
Populists; because the plain “Common People,” who were Republicans of
the Abraham Lincoln school, had no confidence in the Democratic party
as a party. They were plain “Common People,” who wanted a party in
which they would feel at home. They did not find it in the Democratic
party, and, being absolutely disgusted with the degeneracy and social
shams of the Republican party, they flocked to the party of the
Populists to the extent of 1,000,000 voters, as presenting a haven--no
matter how insufficient--in the storm created by the wrath of the
people, caused by the idiocy and assumption upon the part of believers
in “caste” in our country.
“The prestige of gains and achievements, indicating that the
Populist party is destined to become one of the two great
political organizations of the country.
“This last item is the deduction of optimism from the foregoing.
The heavy popular vote for the Populist electors in some of
the Southern States serves principally to show that under the
conditions existing in 1892, the solid South would have been
broken and its solid electoral vote lost to the democracy had
not the Force Bill issue been put at the front. The twenty-three
electoral votes credited to Weaver in the West and Northwest
separate themselves, on analysis, into elements in which the
Omaha platform and the specially characteristic features of the
Alliance movement sustain a subordinate part. Colorado and Nevada
went for Weaver because they were for silver, not because they
were for Weaver. Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, and the one vote in
Oregon were gained by the acquiescence of the Democratic managers
in a scheme of fusion obviously to the advantage of the Democratic
national ticket. Weaver’s proportion of the vote, either popular
or electoral, cannot be accepted as a trustworthy measure of the
growth of public sentiment in the West in favor of the general
programme drawn up at Omaha.
“The first solid and effective achievement in the list is the
direct gain of the Populists in their representation in the
Congress of the United States. This means something. They must
have Senators and Representatives if they are ever going to shape
the legislation of the country; and until they can legislate, or
muster sufficient strength at the Capitol to force legislation
agreeable to their ideas of public policy, they have accomplished
nothing. Now they turn up with five Senators, as they believe,
and with at least ten Representatives, as they have reason to be
certain. It is a respectable showing for a new party, even if we
do not count the silver Senators as Populists out and out. But,
as an indication of the probable strength of the Populists in the
Fifty-fourth Congress, or in the Fifty-fifth, as a reasonable
assurance of future progressive development, it is worthless.
We need only remind the Populists that their predecessor, the
so-called National party, representing the greenback craze, and,
in a measure, the dissatisfaction with political conditions that
marked the period after the counting in of Hayes, went into the
Forty-sixth House with fourteen Congressmen. The Greenbackers
and Readjusters went into the Forty-seventh House with eleven
Congressmen. In the Forty-eighth, their strength dropped to two.
The Greenback wave had swept off and away; the two old parties
confronted each other as before, and the phenomenon of a third
party in Congress, mustering more than a dozen lawgivers, had
disappeared as utterly as if it had never been.
“The same thing is true respecting the capture, with the aid of
fusion, of some of the Western States. Nobody has forgotten the
astonishingly sudden appearance and subsidence of the Greenback
wave in the old and conservative New England State of Maine. In
1878, the Greenbackers cast about fifty per cent. more votes than
the Democrats. In 1879, the Greenback vote was more than double
the Democratic, and the election was thrown into the Legislature,
which chose a Democratic Governor. In 1880, the Greenbackers
fused with the remaining fragments of the Democracy, and carried
the State and controlled its government. Where are the Maine
Greenbackers to-day?
“The two great political organizations in this country have always
been and must always be the party of centralization, paternalism,
and meddlesome interference with affairs not belonging to the
Federal Government, and the party resisting those destructive
tendencies on the lines of Jeffersonian Democracy and home rule.
The issue is permanent and the same, no matter what the parties
may call themselves. There is no chance for the Populists on the
ground now occupied by the victorious Democracy. If they can crowd
the Republican organization out of the special function which it
has filled with distinguished ability for a quarter of a century,
that is their business, not ours. The achievement would be much
like Jonah swallowing the whale.”
The Abolition party, which absorbed the old Whig party and made the
present Republican party, had not nearly so respectable a beginning as
the Populist party. With all the predictions of failure recited above,
the Populist party has a name--and there is much in a name--which has
already endeared it to the hearts of the masses to the extent of a
million votes.
It was the suffering masses, the plain “Common People,” who, under the
name of Populist, voted for Weaver. There can be no doubt about the
affiliation between the Democratic party and the Populist party in the
next Congress of the United States. Every Representative elected by the
Populist, every Senator selected as the result of their votes cast for
the State legislators, will recognize that the Populist party contains
the same elements, to the plain “Common People,” as the Democratic
party, and, therefore, faith will best be kept with the constituents
by whom the Populist Representatives and Senators were elected, by
acting with the Democratic party, so long as it continues to wage war
upon “caste” and class distinctions and the accumulation of wealth in a
dangerous degree in our country.
The Populists have a mission in furnishing to the weary wayfarer
a resting place. Many political wayfarers who formerly journeyed
under the guidance of the Republican party, hesitate before seeking
the protection of the Democratic party. To such the Populist party
furnishes a haven of rest.
Should the Democratic party and Grover Cleveland, as representative
of the party by whom he was nominated, fail to secure to the “Common
People” those rights of which they deem themselves deprived by the
Republican party; and should there be a hesitancy or neglect in
righting those wrongs of which the “Common People” complain, then the
Populists, if some of the “isms” be weeded out of its fair garden,
would furnish the Eden for the “Common People.” Should Grover Cleveland
and the Democratic party neglect quickly and unhesitatingly to pass
such laws, and execute the same, as will relieve the “Common People”
of the burden that is cast upon them by ungraded taxation, then the
“Common People,” by the might that abides with them, may select the
Populist party, freed from some of its idiosyncrasies, as the party of
the people.
It is merely a question of whether the Democratic party and Grover
Cleveland will perform the will of the people. If not, the people, by
a reorganization of this, the Populist party, will secure a political
organization which will perform the mandates of the “Common People.”
The “Common People” will thrust aside both the old parties and utilize
that party which by the magic of simply a popular name was enabled to
gain a million votes taken from both of the old parties.
CHAPTER XXVI.
“FLABBYISM” AND THE INCOME TAX.
Now, be it well understood that there is no attempt made, in
commenting upon the article on the editorial page of the New York
_Sun_, to disparage in any manner that worthy and eminent journal. It
represents one part, or side, of that incongruous party, called the
Democratic party, which presents phases as worthy of observance by the
curiosity-seeker in the political field as the Populist party. On one
side, Protection, endorsed by the New York _Sun_; Free Trade, endorsed
by the New York _World_; a graded income tax, endorsed by the New York
_World_, and even the suggestion of an income tax, dubbed by the New
York _Sun_ as “flabby talk.”
Noah Webster defines flabby to mean, “soft, yielding, loose, easily
shaken.” Well, if the will of eleven million voters, as heard in the
verdict rendered by the majority November 8, 1892, be “soft, yielding,
easily shaken,” then the talk of an Income Tax _is flabby_, then the
talk of a Graded Income Tax _is flabby_. The will of the majority of
the said eleven million voters made possible the election of Grover
Cleveland and the other nominees of the Democratic party. Possibly the
will of the people, so expressed November 8th last, may be “flabby”;
but there will be another and fearful story to tell unless the will
of the people, as expressed, be executed by their servants selected
November last.
The New York _Sun_ does not astonish the people--the plain “Common
People”--of America when it announces a predilection upon the part of
the privileged wealthy classes to commit perjury. The “Common People”
of America have become accustomed to associate in their minds the
worshipers of “caste” with every kind of crime which is consistent
with their assumed superiority. It is only necessary to quote an
article which appeared in one of the leading journals, to give evidence
that, even under the present system of a tax on personal property,
the inclination of these sham aristocrats, the would-be nobility of
America, is to commit perjury. So worthy is the article of attention
that it is given in _extenso_, that the people may judge of the animal
they are chasing, and that the weapon, Grover Cleveland, may duly
appreciate what efficiency is necessary, upon his part, as the weapon
in the hands of the huntsman to destroy this beast of “caste” and
accumulated wealth in our land:--
“Ever since the Comptroller and Tax Commissioners of the city
declared war upon Lawyer H. Charles Ulman for issuing his famous
circular, offering legal services to those whom he believed to
be grossly wronged by a wilfully corrupt administration of the
personal tax laws, the enterprising counsellor has been hard
at work accumulating evidence in support of the very critical
attitude he has assumed.
“Mr. Ulman is a hard fighter and is determined to prove to the
entire satisfaction of the public that the serious allegations he
makes against our Tax Department officials are all true.
“Yesterday Mr. Ulman notified me that he had completed the
compilation of a few statistics which he desired to submit to the
HERALD for publication. I found him ready with his statistics and
loaded to the muzzle with hot shot for the Tax Commissioners in
general and Tax Commissioner Feitner in particular.
“‘Let us get right down to business,’ were the words with which
Mr. Ulman supplemented the regulation greeting. ‘I have recently,
as all New York is aware, challenged the methods of our Tax
Commissioners as to personal property taxation. I now reiterate
the challenge and desire to submit to public judgment a few
figures taken from the personal tax records recently opened for
inspection. These figures conclusively prove that our richest men
are assessed for ludicrously small personal properties, so small
and palpably unfair as to establish the conviction that falsehood
and fraud are at the bottom of the ridiculous valuations. Here is
the list:--
Assessed for
Personal Property
to the
Value of
Jay Gould $500,000
George J. Gould 10,000
Russell Sage 100,000
Wm. Rockefeller 50,000
C. P. Huntington 150,000
Henry Hilton 100,000
E. S. Jaffray 100,000
Morris K. Jesup 75,000
Eugene Kelly 100,000
George Kemp 100,000
Luther Kountz 10,000
Augustus Kountz 15,000
Andrew Carnegie 150,000
Addison Cammack 100,000
William Astor 500,000
W. W. Astor 4,311,400
Henry Villard 25,000
Jessie Seligman 50,000
James Seligman 50,000
I. Wormser 10,000
S. Wormser 10,000
D. O. Mills 50,000
Henry Flagler 25,000
John H. Flagler 10,000
R. P. Flower 150,000
Ogden Goelet 150,000
Robert Goelet 150,000
F. W. Vanderbilt 100,000
G. W. Vanderbilt 100,000
W. K. Vanderbilt 200,000
C. Vanderbilt 200,000
T. A. Havemeyer 100,000
H. O. Havemeyer 120,000
Wm. F. Havemeyer 15,000
“‘Now,’continued Mr. Ulman, ‘whether every one of these
individuals appeared in person before the Commissioners, or
whether the amounts were placed by the Deputy Commissioners, I
cannot say.’
“The fact remains the same, that among all our very rich men
there is but one--W. W. Astor--who pays taxes on anything
like the amount of his actual personal property. Either the
deputies charged with making the examinations have committed
‘larceny,’ or the wealthy citizens above mentioned have appeared
before the Commissioners, ‘swore off’ as a matter of form, and
been ‘whitewashed’ as a matter of course upon due exercise of
‘influence.’
“‘Let me tell you something that will surprise the public. The
ladies of the city are its heaviest tax-payers. Every one of them
who has personal property has an assessment levied upon her to the
full amount of her possessions. In her case there are no votes
to be considered, no political influences to be placated, and,
as a result, no deductions are made, no scaling or estimating is
allowed, but every dollar possessed is taxed. I have, practically,
but just inaugurated this crusade against the corruption existing
in the Tax Office, and I believe that a careful examination of the
public records, backed by the logic of facts and figures, will
enable me to expose a degree of rottenness more startling even
than that of the old Tweed ring.’
THE BLAME.
“‘Who is to blame for the state of things in the Tax Office?’ I
asked.
“Mr. Ulman pondered this question for some minutes before he
replied, as though hesitating to convert his general charges
against the Tax Department into a direct personality. But once
having made up his mind, the counsellor sailed into the senior
member of the Tax Commission--Mr. Thomas L. Feitner--with
surprising vigor, handling him without gloves, and winding up with
the suggestion of an appeal to Mayor Grant for his dismissal.
“‘The fact of the matter is,’ said the counsellor, ‘Mr. Feitner
is the entire commission. The two gentlemen associated with him
are comparatively new to the department, and are pushed into the
background and kept there, by this all-wise Pooh Bah.
“‘The Chief Justice and his associates on the bench of the Court
of Appeals have had occasion to chide Feitner in their decisions,
but Feitner will tell you that the Court of Appeals does not
understand tax laws, and that its rulings are not good law.
“‘Special capital is his special prey just at this time. Under
the laws of New York it must be contributed in money and the
amount advertised. This renders Mr. Feitner’s raid upon it a
matter of very simple procedure, and he levies his assessments
upon it whether the status of the property in which the capital
is invested is in Spain, Africa, or New York. Nor does it matter
if the money is invested in imported goods in original packages,
although, by the constitution of the country, such goods are
removed from the jurisdiction of the State’s taxing powers.
“‘But this does not trouble Feitner. He puts his assessments upon
capital so invested, compelling the owner to submit to a taxation
of from ten to fifteen per cent. of his money or go into court by
certiorari and obtain a release at an expense of more than the
amount of illegal tax.
“‘If Mayor Grant desires an equitable and proper administration
of the Tax Office he will dismiss Mr. Feitner and appoint a man
to fill his place who, to say the least, has a knowledge of
commerce, the needs of business, and can understand the plainly
written law when he reads it.
“‘There is another point in this matter which furnishes food for
reflection--namely, the very small number of persons in this city
who are assessed for taxation--less than thirteen thousand out of
a taxable population of nearly one hundred thousand.’”
After reading the above--and presumably it is correct--let us stand in
holy astonishment that Jay Gould should suddenly have acquired over
$65,000,000 of personal property, according to his will, since this
schedule and assessment of personal property was filed, because this
late lamented Gould was the possessor of personal property only, with
the exception of his residence. Therefore it is obvious, since he swore
to possessing only $500,000 of personal property, that he must have
acquired, in some miraculous manner, more than $65,000,000 of personal
property, which he bequeathed to his children, according to his will,
recently filed in the Surrogate’s office in the city of New York.
Mr. George Gould swears that he has only $10,000 in personal property.
Now who believes it? Mr. Russell Sage has only $100,000 in personal
property! and the Vanderbilts each have from $100,000 to $200,000 worth!
Poor men! Let the commiseration of the masses go forth. These
gentlemen, who are accredited with the possession of millions, and
who, when they die, find themselves suddenly possessed of the millions
with which they are accredited by the public, are poor men while they
live, and have to pay taxes!
Right you are, New York _Sun_; an income tax would lead to perjury!
Of course, not upon the part of the gentlemen named--for “Brutus was
an honorable man”--but we will agree with you, after reading this
schedule, that an income tax would lead to perjury. But let us suggest
that we, the people, have elected a man as chief executive of the
nation, who represents us, the “Common People,” and will see to the
execution of the laws of the nation--Grover Cleveland. To be an honest
man and fulfill the expectations of the people, he will see that those
who should pay the expenses of the Government by an income tax shall
make honest returns concerning their possessions, and pay that sum of
money to which the Government is entitled.
If he do not so, he is faithless, and the people will hold him
accountable. The power of the Government will be in his hands--both
branches of the Legislature. And should the National Legislature,
selected by the people, deem it wise to furnish revenue for the
Government, and pass an income tax graded according to the incomes
received, then it will devolve upon Grover Cleveland, as trustee of
the nation, to see that the will of the Legislature is executed. He
has the power to appoint such officers as may be necessary to properly
execute the laws of the Federal Union, and we, the “Common People,”
will expect a ratification of all the promises made by him to the
people of the Union. The people of the nation, trusting and relying
upon his honesty and integrity, selected him for the high office of
Chief Magistrate of the GREATEST NATION ON EARTH. We have placed in
his hands the power of the majority, and we shall expect the execution
of such laws as the will of the majority may dictate; _the foremost of
which will be an income tax_, whereby may be eradicated many of the
evils of which the masses, the “plain people,” complain.
Should perjury be committed--and it would not be astonishing, because
the “plain people” of America are not apt to be astonished at anything
vile that may be done by the sham aristocracy and worshipers of “caste”
in our country--then let Grover Cleveland, as Executive of the nation,
having the power of the people behind him, supported by the mighty
voice of the broad democracy of our land, prosecute, by means of the
officers of the Federal Government (paid by the people to punish crimes
of the character indicated by the New York _Sun_, such as perjury),
and, upon conviction, let the glorious sight be afforded to us plain
“Common People,” of a millionaire working in a shoe shop at Sing-Sing;
let us see the stripes of the criminal adorning the backs of some
of these good, my lords, the barons, who swear to lies and perjure
themselves about their incomes; grab a dozen of them; convict them
of perjury; make them appear before the people as criminals, as the
people believe they are. One batch of a dozen going to Sing-Sing and
Auburn--one batch of a dozen would-be Patricians breaking rock for the
good of the public, would be a sight that would delight the very souls
of the “Common People.”
The people make the laws! Now, you millionaires, obey the laws; and a
transgression against those laws, though you be worth $100,000,000,
will not be excused. The people believe that an income tax can be
collected in spite of the perjury predicted by the New York _Sun_,
because of the PUNISHMENT that the PEOPLE WILL INFLICT upon the
perjurers.
The people have had enough, a surfeit, of this cry of immunity from the
consequences of crime because the criminal happens to possess wealth.
We are weary, tired of it. And the people have made up their minds that
the wealthy criminals shall be brought to the bar of justice along with
the poorest, pilfering thief of a penny loaf. There shall not be in our
land one law for the rich and another for the poor. If these wealthy
criminals perjure themselves with regard to their incomes, they must
be punished, and the people will expect the punishment and penalty to
be inflicted by and through the administration of Grover Cleveland.
To cry out, with the New York _Sun_, that “If you pass a law requiring
the citizens of the American Union to swear to the truth and record
their incomes, it is but offering an inducement to perjury, and,
therefore, is undesirable,” is to admit that our Government is a
failure, that a Republic is a failure, that the will of the majority
shall not rule, that the American Constitution is a farce and a fraud,
all of which the “Common People” will not believe to be the case.
They demand the law! The enforcement of it rests with the Executive
of the nation. The punishment rests upon the integrity and honor of
the judiciary of the Federal courts. And there has been no evidence
yet of a lack of honesty in the members of the Federal judiciary. The
perjurers can and should be punished. If the Legislature of the nation,
the Congress of the United States, will pass a graded income tax, as
the people desire that they should do, the people believe that the
law will be executed under the wise and honest administration of that
Executive chosen by them November 8, 1892--Grover Cleveland. The people
believe that, should any be accused of perjury and false return of
their incomes, they will be prosecuted by the officers of the Federal
courts, who will be honest, being appointed by Grover Cleveland, the
representative of the people; that, when so charged, perjurers brought
to trial will be prosecuted fairly and ably by the representatives of
the executive department, selected by the people November last, and,
when so tried, the people, by twelve of their number, the jury, will
decide whether the accused be guilty or innocent, and, if guilty, the
people believe that the wealth and position of the accused will not
enter into the consideration of the Magistrate representing the Federal
Government, but that he will sentence a guilty man, even though he be
worth a million or a hundred million, in the same manner as he would
the commonest counterfeiter or petty larceny thief in the land.
Believing thus, the plain people of America see no good reason or
argument in the cry that an income tax will be productive of perjury
and that it is a sufficient reason to prevent its passage. And,
therefore, a graded income tax becomes the most desirable measure
possible to introduce for the advantage of the people who elected the
incoming administration, November 8, 1892.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONCLUSION.
It would be with feelings of regret that this volume is brought to
an end if the object for which it was intended could reasonably be
expected to be in any way nearer of attainment. Unfortunately for the
successful solution of the social problem in the United States, such
can hardly be hoped for by the publication of one book, or as the
result of one election; it will require the efforts of many skillful
writers, a vast number of volumes, and it is to be feared many and
more serious exhibitions of the indignation felt by the “Plain People”
than that of the election of November 8, 1892, to convince the sham
aristocracy of our country, that the existence of “caste” or privileged
classes will not be endured in Free America. It is to be dreaded by
all who love the Union, that the blinded believers in snobbery and
imitation of European manners will not be warned by the positive,
pronounced disapprobation exhibited last election day of the plain
“Common People” with the conduct, lives, morals, and manners of the
worshipers of “caste;” that these sham aristocrats will neglect to
heed the signal of danger which their insolence and affectations have
created in our loved Republic, until upon the next occasion the plain
“Common People” may have become so incensed as to no longer exercise
the great and good common-sense of the American people in dealing
with questions of internal interest--but will throw to the winds
moderation, and crush out the pretensions of that asinine part of the
human family who believe in the possible existence of anything like
“caste” in our country. To some of these shoddy aristocrats who have
become absolutely intoxicated by their dreams of social greatness,
this book will be unworthy of their condescending attention; they will
dismiss the subject as the vaporings of a madman, without investigating
the possible and more than probable theory expressed herein, that the
result of the last Presidential election was produced, not by the fact
that the people of the nation had become Free Traders and gone over
to the Democratic party, _en masse_, but by the natural resentment
felt by the democratic “plain” people of the country at the absurd
and offensive pretensions of the wealthy classes who had fastened
themselves like leeches upon the Republican party, and who, by aping
the manners and morals of the aristocracy of Europe, had rendered
themselves hateful in the eyes of the worth and merit of our land, the
“Common People” of America. By the existence of this leech upon the
body of the Republican party, all the pure patriotic blood had (in the
opinion of the people) been sucked out of that Grand Old Party, leaving
only a withered skeleton around whose fleshless form was twined in
festoons the venomous serpent of “caste,” imported, like the cholera,
along with much else of evil that comes to this dear land of ours from
Europe.
A small part of owners of villas at Newport and castles in Scotland
will see in this book the expression of opinions which they dub as
dangerous, and declare should entitle the utterer to the treatment
accorded the private soldier who did not sympathize with the tyrannical
Frick in his treatment of the Homestead strikers. This part of our
would-be nobility have always ready in their throats the cry of
“Socialist”--“Anarchist.” With studious care has the author of this
volume insisted upon the fact that the only practical and effectual
method of ridding the land of the curse that would result from the
existence of “caste” here, is by the ballot--by laws enacted to prevent
the accumulation of menacingly large fortunes in the hands of a few
citizens of the Union.
To this part of the pretended “Lords and Barons,” who declare that
truth is sometimes best left unexpressed, and that a man may become
dangerous by giving utterance to the feelings that fill the breasts of
other men, it would be well to consider which is the most efficacious
method to be adopted in dealing with the bite of a mad dog, or a
cancer. Is it by covering it with beautiful silken bandages, and thus
concealing it from view, or is it by cauterization? Does concealment
render the disease less dangerous or deep-seated? Recommending a cure,
and not a curtain to cover the wound which festers all the more rapidly
by the fact that it is heated by the covering, should be the line of
treatment adopted by the good physician of the public body, as of
the individual body. Every party slave may object to the idea of the
victory of the “Common People,” November 8, 1892, being considered
in any light save that of a party triumph. The fact remains just the
same, however; party machination had little to do with results produced
by the people at the last election. There are such positive and
unmistakable indications of the demand of the people for the passage
of a Graded Income Tax, that silence any longer upon the subject is
puerile.
When leading Democratic party newspapers, like the New York _World_,
openly proclaim the necessity of such laws, it is useless to hesitate
in meeting frankly the causes that led to the demand of the people for
such legislation as a “Graded Income Tax.” Since part of this volume
was put in type, an American citizen has died, leaving an estate of
$70,000,000, which tremendous amount consisted almost entirely of
personal property, upon which practically no taxes were paid. This
almost countless mass of the wealth of the nation is held entirely by
the descendants of Jay Gould. Not one dollar was bequeathed to one
single object of charity. Not one poor man calls to mind the name of
Jay Gould with gratitude. The common, plain people of America have no
desire to rob the children of Jay Gould of that $70,000,000. “Enjoy
that great fortune in peace and safety,” the people say to the Goulds;
but the people also add this: “We have now an opportunity to judge of
the supreme selfishness and absence of charity in the hearts of the
millionaires. As an object lesson, Jay Gould’s will is valuable. In
future give us a Graded Income Tax, and prevent the vast accumulation
of wealth in the hands of the selfish and uncharitable.”
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|Transcriber’s note: |
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|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
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