The Meaning of Political Life

It is a well-known fact that when words have been long and vigorously used they gather within and around themselves varied meanings. Some parts of these meanings are remnants of historic, and possibly outworn, experience; other parts are the result of more or less deliberate perversion under the stress of deep feelings aroused by opposition and fighting. This is especially the fate of words in any way associated with politics. Think how battered and useless for purposes of ordinary discussion “democrat” and “republican” or “socialist” have become in America!

In the struggle of the last fifty years over woman’s suffrage, most of the words involved have undergone such transformations; and so many prejudices have become associated with them, that no one can think or speak clearly and fairly to-day in these terms. “Woman’s Rights,” “enfranchisement,” “Votes for Women,” “suffragette,” “polls,” “ballot,” “political issues,” and many other words, have gone through this destructive process.

To read some of the most popular literature on this subject one might imagine that women had all deserted home and fireside, babies and baking, and were lined up, struggling fiercely to deposit certain printed slips, called votes or ballots, dealing with esoteric mysteries understood only by men like Mr. Bryan or Mr. Roosevelt, in ballot-boxes. These receptacles are supposed to be behind, or very near, lawless saloons, where gangs of hoodlums are waiting to assault the bearers of these mysterious tickets. Thus Miss Seawell writes in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1910: “The trouble would begin with the mere attempt of women to deposit their ballots. A dozen ruffians at a single polling-place would prevent a single woman from depositing a single vote. There can be no doubt that this means would be used by the rougher element and that the polls would become a scene of preordained riot and disorder.” Of course, such statements could not appear in a leading magazine, in a land where women have been voting quietly for many years, were it not for the perversity of the words which the author tries to use, but which really use her. In other periodicals, equally respectable, one learns that women, goaded on by the intolerable political tyranny of men, have agreed as one soul to advance, with ballots in their hands, and sweep graft and greed, drink and all other human wrongs, into the sea of oblivion forever. Of course, this is nonsense, or worse, and in this chapter I should like to turn away from this warfare, leaving even the battered and prejudiced-soaked words alone, as much as may be possible, and simply ask: What is political life, not as defined in books, but as actually lived by a self-respecting farmer or merchant of our acquaintance? What qualities does political life presuppose in a participant? How does its use affect him? What does it enable him to accomplish? What is the relation of a woman not some militant or unsexed ogre, nor a female breeding animal in a harem, but our own sisters, wives and daughters as they really are what is their relation to this mysterious process?

If one approaches the political life of our modern democracies in this simple spirit of inquiry it would seem that the first requisite for participation is the ability to form sound judgments concerning political matters; and all matters are now becoming political which affect the welfare of the community. Certainly the citizen cannot devise political machinery nor select candidates to work such machinery, much less “cast a ballot,” until he knows what he wants done. What are some of the questions, then, on which he must form judgments?

First of all, he must be prepared to think intelligently about protecting his life and property. He must know something of the danger of foreign invasion, of the consequent need of a navy and standing army. He must make up his mind whether it is necessary to spend $123,000,000 yearly on an American navy and $156,000,000 on an American army, as we are at present doing, that we may be ready to fight England, Germany or Japan if at any time we want to do so. He must ask himself whether this money might not better be used in fighting ignorance, crime, poverty and disease.

The would-be citizen must also think about protecting himself from assault as he walks about the streets; about protecting his house from thieves as he lies asleep at night. He must have thought about the careless use of cars, automobiles, firearms and explosives in general. He must consider the danger from fires, contagion, diseases, mobs; he must think intelligently about contaminated water and impure foods. All these things are necessary for the physical well-being of the community life. Of course, if either man or woman cannot think intelligently about these things, he ought not to have control of them; he should leave such matters to those who can think of them.

In the second place, the would-be citizen must have fairly sound judgments on questions of raising and spending necessary revenue. What are the effects of direct and indirect taxation? Would a heavy tax on land force unused lands, including mines and waterways, into use? Should a man with a cash income of $50,000 a year pay more to support government than one with a cash income of $500? What are the objections to an income tax? How does it work in England, where it has been fairly tried? Should a great corporation pay taxes in proportion to its wealth, and in places where the wealth is protected by the law? If so, how can it be reached? Should churches, museums, libraries and schools be taxed; if not, why not? Should taxes be laid on flour, meat and eggs, on woolen cloth, on silks, velvets, ostrich plumes and diamonds? Should taxes be laid on whiskey, wines, tobacco, cigars and race-tracks? Should taxes be devised, or continued, to protect such infant industries as now handle our kerosene oil, meat, sugar and steel? Surely no one who cannot form independent judgments on these matters should presume to direct them through voting.

But not only must a nation raise revenue in the wisest and most equitable manner possible, and spend it effectively and economically, but it must also care for its present possessions. So the would-be citizen must know about the wealth in which he wants to share. What do the national, State and municipal governments own? How should the vast domains of land, the onetime inexhaustible forests, the mines of coal and metal, the waterways and water-powers, the special privileges and franchises belonging to the people be used? Should they be thrown away, gambled away, given away as favors, rented, sold, or handled directly by the people? On what terms or under what guarantees should they be turned over to individuals or companies, if this is to be done? Those who cannot form judgments on these matters should not be entrusted with such vast responsibility, be they men or women.

Questions of our foreign relations must also occupy the thought of the citizen. Are foreign entanglements necessary or desirable? If so, with what European or Asiatic nations should we seek to strengthen our friendship? Are our interests nearly identical with those of England? If we formed a close defensive alliance with her should we be thereby aiding universal peace as much as we might by maintaining more generally friendly relations with all European powers? Would an alliance with England probably draw us into her troubles, if she has any, in Egypt or India? How would such an alliance affect our relation with England’s present ally, Japan? Are we fitted by the genius of our institutions and by our experience to handle a foreign empire? If not, what should we do with the Philippines?

So, too, those who are to direct the destinies of the country must think out what our relations are to be with Latin America. In the past some statesman, a Richelieu or a Bismarck, had a policy and led his nation to it by devious paths of indirection. But now that each citizen is a king, he must have a policy for his realm. Are our republican neighbors to the south to be increasingly recognized as under our protection and direction? If so, how are we to maintain the peace and secure payment of their foreign debts? All these problems are bound up with the management of the Panama Canal. They confront us in different forms in connection with immigration, especially of Asiatics.

Our institutional life must also be regulated by the citizens, and so they must have judgments about each of its details. They must know what they think about the family, forms of legal marriage and divorce, and the care of children when the family fails. The Church must be considered and protected; possibly it should be encouraged; and possibly its unwarranted assumption should sometimes be checked. Schools must be founded, supported, directed. Art galleries, museums and clubs must be chartered, and then controlled; and so must all the other institutions of our modern society. The would-be citizen must be able to think about all this work.

Industries, on which our individual and collective well-being depend, must be encouraged by special favors, limited to the public good, protected from violence, inspected in the interest of employees. Hours must be regulated, disputes settled, conditions of labor and safety secured. Children should be protected against employers’ greed; and working women must receive special consideration, if the race of strong men is to continue. Here again the citizen must have judgments, or the power to make judgments, as new needs arise.

Then, too, there is a tradition of government, established by the fathers and modified by experience, which should be understood by the citizens. It recognizes certain rights as being reserved by the individual States, and others as belonging to the national government. The would-be citizen should be acquainted with this tradition so that he can determine how far it is desirable to adopt a new nationalism. He will have to pass judgment on the control of interstate commerce, national or State control of public lands, national divorce and liquor laws, national food inspection, and other practical subjects which may destroy the older balance of power so jealously guarded by our earlier statesmen. The citizen must make up his mind if this is desirable.

Newer political theories must also receive the citizens’ attention. Many people believe that wealth created by the people can be enjoyed by the people only when they control the sources of supply and the means of production and distribution. The citizen should know whether these socialist tendencies should be favored or suppressed. There are others who believe that government is unnecessary, and that men and women can be happy and effective only when formal laws are abrogated. The citizen must determine whether he will allow those who hold such doctrines to express them; or whether he will suppress their meetings and forbid them to enter the country. These are but a few of the subjects concerning which the citizen must think, but they are typical and they may represent the rest.

In the last analysis, it is these judgments on political matters which govern a modern democracy, whatever the laws on the statute books may be, and whatever machinery of government may be established.

Not long since, I visited one of our States where the laws forbid any one to make or sell, as a beverage, any intoxicating liquors, within the State. At the leading hotel, in the large city where I stopped, beer and whiskey signs were displayed outside the entrance; and at an open bar, in the center of the hotel, four bartenders were dispensing all kinds of drinks, while at the tables of the hotel restaurant, liquors were openly bought and drunk. There are many indictments standing against this hotel, but in two test cases juries have refused to convict the proprietors. I am told it is the same in all of the principal hotels in the larger cities of this State. In this same State, the laws forbid the manufacture or sale of cigarettes, but they are openly displayed and sold in nearly all cigar stores. In the same State, whites and blacks live under the same laws, but blacks seldom vote; they do not use the parks, attend white people’s meetings nor ride with the whites in public conveyances. And yet the city was quiet and orderly and I felt as safe in person and property as though the laws on the statute books, instead of the judgments in the public mind, were being obeyed. Since this form of public opinion is so powerful, it is well that it should be intelligent.

Granted, then, that the candidate for citizen honors is prepared to pass judgment on such matters as we have indicated, he must next be prepared to devise and control means to carry these judgments into effect. Here he approaches the problems of statescraft. He must have in his mind a general scheme of government, with a sense of legislative, judicial and executive functions. He must realize the value of a constitution, as a point of departure; and have a theory as to safe ways of modifying it. He must have fairly clear notions of legislation, and of the kinds of laws that are desirable and effective. He should know how far representative legislative bodies can be trusted to express the will of the people; and he should have studied the working of the initiative and the referendum. It is also desirable that he should know the theory of two chambers, and should have ideas as to how the members of the second chamber, if there is to be one, should be chosen.

The candidate for citizen honors should know something of the organization of the judicial branch of government. He should know something of the powers and duties of local magistrates, of county, State and national courts. He should recognize the difference between civil and criminal jurisdiction. He should have an opinion as to whether judges should be elected or appointed, and if appointed, who should select them. He should realize the grave dangers that surround a corrupt judiciary, and he should know the means by which a court is enabled to maintain its standing and authority.

So of the executive power, he should see its relation to the other powers, from the constable to the president. He should know the qualities required in a good executive and should be able to distinguish them in possible candidates. He should know that when the executive is lax the best of laws fall into abeyance, and he should know how such officers can be held up, through criticism by public opinion and penalties, to the fulfilment of duties. The recall should have been considered.

In the third place, the citizen should know how to select the right kind of people to carry his political judgments into effect. Possibly, under a representative form of government, this is the most necessary qualification for a good voter. Many of the matters with which modern government must deal are technical, and the citizen here, as in his private affairs, must rest on the judgment of those he employs. And yet, in general, he must know what he wants.

He must know the general laws that govern the organization of parties; and he should be somewhat acquainted with the psychology of crowds. He should know how candidates are selected under the convention or caucus system; he should have an independent judgment on direct primaries.

In selecting men, the citizen must be able to recognize general ability and intellectual fitness. It is at this point that modern democracies are most apt to go wrong. The standards by which we measure men and women are most imperfect; and we are prone to let one good or bad quality overshadow all others. Thus in an extended study on school children’s attitude toward Queen Victoria in England, and toward President McKinley in America, made while these rulers were alive, we found that less than twenty per cent. mentioned any kind of political ability, nor did they often mention their general ability, nor their honesty. They admired them primarily because they were “good and kind.” In other words the school children of these two lands approve their rulers because, in a vague general way, they like them. The significance of the study lies in the fact that in all democracies a large number of the voters live on an intellectual plane represented by these school children.

This conclusion is borne out by the judgment of Miss Jane Addams who, writing of foreign voters about Hull House, says: “The desire of the Italian and Polish and Hungarian voters in an American city to be represented by ‘a good man’ is not a whit less strenuous than that of the best native stock. Only their idea of the good man is somewhat different. He must be good according to their highest standard of goodness. He must be kind to the poor, not only in a general way, but with particular and unfailing attention to their every want and misfortune. Their joys he must brighten and their sorrows he must alleviate. In emergency, in catastrophe, in misunderstanding with employers and with the law, he must be their strong tower of help. Let him in all these things fill up their ideal of the ‘good man’ and he has their votes at his absolute disposal."

To be a safe citizen one must be able to go beyond this kindly feeling and ask, Does the candidate know enough to do what I want done? Has he the honesty to resist the temptation to exploit me? Has he the leadership to command the best efforts of the subordinates in his department? Has he serious defects that may cause his failure? Is he an opportune man for the time and place?

This selection is made very difficult to-day by the misrepresentation of interested individuals and political parties; and especially by the reports in the press, which seek to discredit candidates they oppose, and to gloss over or deny defects in their chosen leaders. Thus the whole public atmosphere in the midst of a campaign is intended to confuse and bewilder the citizen who is honestly seeking the best candidate. Only ripened intelligence, experience with men and women, and ability to judge conflicting evidence, can enable the voter to select wisely.

In the last place, if the citizen knows what he wants, how to devise the governmental machinery to get it, and how to select the right men to see that it is done, he must register his desire by a vote; and then watch his servant carefully to see if he justifies the trust imposed in him. If he does not, then the citizen must criticise, threaten, and, if necessary, finally dismiss the unfaithful employee. Only one who can fulfil all these functions can be considered a desirable citizen from the point of view of a modern democracy. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

And why should one desire to undertake this arduous responsibility? In the first place, because he wants the public work well done, as he understands it; and the only way to have it done in this manner is to attend to it himself. If he does not attend to it, some one else will do so; and if the intelligent citizens do not look after it then the public business will be exploited by individuals, or groups, in their own interest; and, before the citizen realizes what is happening, he will be deprived of that political liberty to secure which millions of men and women have struggled and suffered and even given their lives in the years which lie behind us.

And yet possibly the most important value of participation in political life to-day is the byproduct of continuous education which it gives. Modern political life has probably done more to train the men involved in it than have schools or churches. Business and industries alone might claim to be its rivals. In a despotism, all the events of public life are uncertain and seemingly accidental, depending as they do on the caprice of an individual. This discourages thought among the masses, paralyzes action, and breeds inertia and hopelessness. At best, it gives rise to periods of desperation and violence; at its worst, it gives us the hopeless masses of Mohammedan lands. In a free democracy, on the other hand, those who participate are in a continuous process of education, judging, selecting, willing, and always with regard to realities that affect daily life. Citizenship gives one a continuous laboratory course of training in the art of right living.

Nor can the full value of this continuous training be obtained by the onlooker, no matter how intelligent he may be. For full growth of mind and spirit one must participate; just as in athletics one must leave the spectator’s bench and play the game if one would develop one’s own powers. Participation means love, hate, devotion and sacrifice, and only when all these powers of the soul are brought into play, together with the judgment, is the character strengthened and life more abundantly obtained.

It must be evident to any one who has carefully followed this analysis that hardly any of the adult male voters in our modern democracies have the qualifications of good citizens. How, then, is good government achieved? It is not achieved. We have very bad government. Everywhere there is waste and inefficiency. Wealth is unjustly divided; great corporations seize public utilities and exploit them for private gain; enormous sums are squandered on unnecessary and dangerous battle-ships and soldiers; in building a single State Capitol, $3,500,000 was recently stolen, not only wasting public wealth, but corrupting public morals; in some parts of our land little children still drive the wheels of industry; and it is everywhere cheaper to scrap-heap men and women than machines; most of our cities are ugly and badly ruled; drunkenness, gambling and prostitution are common; life is not always secure from lawless attack; and the machinery of justice is clogged and moves slowly. Part of our intelligent adult population has no direct share in the government under which it must live. We have just such a government as we should expect where incompetent people decide such vast issues of life.

But, on the other hand, we are vastly better off than any great people has ever been before us. The mistakes are our own; they are made by us who participate in government, and we are learning from them. Those who exploit us may be called to account; and frequently they are caught and punished. Of those who stole the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been returned to the treasury of the State. Even when those who betray us are not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them. They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected in our State Houses they are memorials of shame. Thus we learn the art of living, we who participate in political action.

The whole business of a modern democracy is to educate itself through doing, and we are all at school. If the bills are heavy, they are our bills; and we are steadily learning how to make them less. In the past no one learned. “The Bourbons learned nothing, and forgot nothing;” and the common people were too discouraged to think. It is on these lines that our modern democracies must be judged, not as efficient and economical political machines, but as educational institutions. Judged by this standard, we believe ourselves to be the triumph of the ages.

Nor can it be possible for people to enter political life fully prepared for its duties. Even when a young man approaches a business career we do not ask that he shall possess a knowledge of the business before beginning. If he has general preparation, and a desire to learn, he is admitted to share in its responsibilities, and then learns as he goes along. It is the same in political life; few young men at twenty-one or foreigners at the time of naturalization, have the knowledge indicated in the preceding pages. If they have general preparation and a desire to learn, we admit them to participation, and they learn through doing.

Years ago, while discussing education with an English statesman, he asked whom I considered the leaders of education in his country. Knowing his Tory instincts, I replied, “Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, William T. Stead, John Burns and Keir Hardie.” He laughed contemptuously: “Why those people,” he said, “are merely educating themselves in public.” The statement was true and far-reaching; that is what we are all doing in our modern democracies; and that is at the same time our weakness and our glory.