Part 14

This generation has had one bitter experience of Democratic tariff legislation. In 1892, the Democratic party was, for the first time in thirty-two years, placed in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It came into office committed to free trade, as it would now again come into office pledged to free trade. It passed the Wilson bill in August, 1894, and thereby took its first step towards the abandonment of the policy of protection for American industries. There followed, principally as the direct result of this Democratic tariff legislation and the antecedent menace, an acute period of industrial and financial depression. I had supposed that the fateful years 1894, 1895 and 1896 would never be forgotten by those who suffered through them. As Governor Wilson himself well said in his "History of the American People," in describing this period of misery: "Men of the poorer sort were idle everywhere, and filled with a sort of despair. All the large cities and manufacturing towns teemed with unemployed workingmen who were with the utmost difficulty kept from starvation by the systematic efforts of organized charity." This was also a time of unprecedented social unrest and discontent and of Coxey's ragged "Army of the Commonweal of Christ" crying for food and work. It was a period of misery and depression, of popular discontent and disturbance, of strikes, riots, destruction of property, murder and maiming in industrial disputes. No one could deny, as the historian pointed out, that the country had fallen upon evil times and that American workmen found it harder than ever to live.

We have only to recall to the people's minds the conditions of unemployment, poverty and misery which followed the last tariff legislation of the Democratic party, and compare conditions as they exist to-day. The people of this country will make a terrible mistake and a frightful blunder if they now vote to run the risk of a repetition of those days under the delusion that the currency system of the government was the cause of the business depression and misery that followed immediately upon the election of Cleveland in 1892 and the passage of the Wilson tariff law in 1894.

Many are now telling the people that the tariff is solely responsible for the high cost of living and for the prevalence of social unrest and discontent. Such phenomena are world-wide and exist abroad as much as, if not more than, they exist here. In England, which has no protective tariff, the complaint against the high cost of living has been even louder than here. The real causes of the increase in the cost of living with us undoubtedly are: (1) enormous increase in the world's supply of gold, necessarily diminishing the purchasing value of the dollar, for the world's gold production, which from 1850 to 1890 averaged $120,000,000 per annum and was $130,650,000 in 1891, increased to fully $461,000,000 in 1911, (2) rapid increase of population without a corresponding increase of the production of food and other necessaries of life, (3) flocking to the city and abandoning the farm, (4) appreciation in land values, (5) increase in the price of raw materials, (6) higher rates of wages and decrease in the number of hours of work, (7) better standards of living, (8) exhaustion of some sources of supply, (9) extravagance in public expenditures, and (10) withdrawal of armies of civil servants from productive industry. These are the principal and controlling causes that tend to the higher cost of living; they are world-wide, and, if explained, they will be easily understood and recognized by intelligent and candid business men and workmen, who will at once perceive that these causes will not be removed in any degree by free-trade legislation. Last year serious disturbances occurred in Europe as a result of the prevailing high cost of food supplies there, and the British board of trade is now making an investigation into the cost of living, not only in England but also in Germany, France and Belgium. In fact, an international commission is at this moment inquiring into these causes. How preposterous it would be to say that the American protective tariff was the cause of the high cost of living in free-trade England or elsewhere in Europe!

Nor is the protective tariff in any sense responsible for the spirit of social unrest and discontent except, perhaps, in so far as prosperity begets discontent and multiplies appetites. Throughout the civilized world in recent years there has developed a spirit of social unrest and discontent, of disregard of law, and of disrespect for moral principles and religious beliefs. To those who look below the surface, it is more and more evident that this world-wide symptom is due, in greatest measure, to the spread of Socialism. According to the teachings of the Socialists, avowed or unavowed (for many who are preaching its doctrines would resent being called Socialists), our entire social system and the system of laws under which we live are unjust and should be upset, property rights should be destroyed, and religious beliefs, which are the principal source of our respect for law and order and the rights of property, should be broken down. As an American student and writer has said, a single passage from Liebknecht stands fairly for opinions that may be quoted from twenty authoritative socialist sources in Europe. That passage is as follows: "It is our duty as Socialists to root out the faith in God with all our zeal, nor is any one worthy the name who does not consecrate himself to the spread of atheism." I believe that few American Socialists have gone to any such extreme, but such has certainly been the tendency and teaching of Socialism in Europe.

Unfortunately the atmosphere of the present campaign is calculated to obscure and hide the true issues in controversy and the real danger that lurks under so much noise, declamation and enthusiasm. An avowed assault and an open declaration of war on society, on our form of government, or on our courts of justice would bring the points so clearly before the American people that none of us could for a moment doubt the outcome. We Republicans would hail and welcome an open attack, because we know that the people would then quickly and overwhelmingly rally to the support of our party. The more openly constitutional government and our social system are attacked, the more strongly will they become cemented in the affection and reverence of the people.

Most of our political and social institutions which are now being assailed as antiquated are founded on truths which ought ever to be self-evident. These truths sound trite, but "trite truths are often the most valuable truths, though sometimes divested of force by their very triteness." We are constantly hearing talk about the principles of the Constitution being antiquated in the eyes of these modern iconoclasts, and the other day a leader of the Progressives in this state, who is himself a lawyer, referring to the Progressive judicial nominations boasted that they had selected men who did not believe in a "dead constitution." Yet these candidates are ready to accept a judicial office which they could not rightly fill for a minute without taking an oath to support the Constitution in which they do not believe.

When a truth, be it political, moral, or religious, is once discovered and established, it is eternal; it loses none of its vitality because it has grown old; it never dies. If some religious Progressive--and our political Progressives affect much of the religiously emotional--should now preach a new religion and proclaim that existing religions and their restraints should be cast aside simply because they are old, the dullest man would readily see the utter fallacy and wickedness of such an argument. Imagine any one seriously arguing that the Ten Commandments are worthless and dead as rules of human conduct and self-restraint because they are four thousand years old and were first enunciated in an age not so rapid as our own--in an age when there were no printing presses, no steam engines, no electricity and no talking machines! Yet, so long as our civilization endures, so long as human intelligence lasts, so long as religion shall continue to comfort and sustain and uplift men and women, so long will the Ten Commandments be sound and true rules of conduct and the fundamental basis of all religions. Likewise as to the great political documents evidencing the progress of the human race upward towards liberty, like Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States: they embody and declare principles of political justice and fundamental truths which are eternal; and whilst majorities at times may ignorantly and recklessly disregard them or cast them aside for temporary objects, they are as eternal and imperishable as are the Ten Commandments.

Of the many revolutionary schemes in the Progressive platform, both national and state, one of the most dangerous and far-reaching is the proposal to destroy the representative character of our government by substituting direct action by the people in place of action by legislatures and officers elected by the people. This is to be accomplished through the initiative and the referendum. The movement is doubly important at the present time because, as is well known, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, after teaching directly the contrary for many years, has become a recent convert to these ideas. Although such a scheme might be beneficial or harmless in the little town meetings of New England, in small municipalities, or in agricultural states having a homogeneous population less in number than some of the counties of the state of New York, the initiative and the referendum would be wholly unsuited to an empire such as ours with a population of nearly 100,000,000, or to a state such as New York with a population of nearly 10,000,000. Would it not be absurd and preposterous to have the thousands of bills annually introduced in Congress passed upon by the people at large, and would it not be equally absurd and preposterous for a state like New York, passing hundreds of bills every year, to give a small minority the right to compel the submission of every statute to the vote of the people? Would it not be little short of calamitous to have those least qualified to understand and appreciate the changes they were making pass upon and control legislation? The result would be chaos.

The great men who founded our system of constitutional government were thoroughly familiar with the theory and operation of pure democracy or direct action by the people, as distinguished from representative government. They saw the past failures of pure democracy and the danger of any such system, and they deliberately declined to adopt it. In speaking of "the equal rights of man," Jefferson declared that "modern times have the signal advantage, too, of having discovered the only device by which these rights can be secured, to wit,--government by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives chosen by themselves."

The plain truth is that the trouble with our legislatures and with Congress is the character of many of the men whom the people elect. The remedy is in the hands of the voters. If they will elect capable and honest men to legislative, executive and judicial office, we shall have a cure at once. We need a remedy, not a poison.

Those who urge the introduction of the initiative, the referendum and the recall base their argument on the ground that some of our legislators and elective officers are incompetent or dishonest, and that, therefore, the people should reserve the right to control their actions and remove them. But if our legislators or other elective officers are incompetent or dishonest--if they are not truly representative of the people who elect them--then obviously the fault lies with those who choose them, and the remedy is to take such measures as will ensure the election of competent, honest and representative men. If the people are now too busy to concern themselves with the selection of honest and capable representatives, is it reasonable to expect that they will concern themselves about the merits of hundreds of statutes which they do not half understand, or about the qualifications of the officers they have elected and would recall? The fault is not with our representative system of government, but either with the party organizations that often nominate incompetent or dishonest men, or with the voters who tolerate such nominations and elect such candidates. Our system of government, as every system of free government, is based on the assumption that the people will conscientiously exercise the elective franchise, and unless we can depend upon an honest, sober-minded and patriotic majority to exercise that franchise, our system of government must ultimately prove a complete failure. The conscientious exercise of the elective franchise is not merely a privilege--it is the highest duty of citizenship. With the great increase in population, political parties and party organizations undoubtedly have become a practical necessity, and leadership is equally necessary; but it has also become indispensable that these party organizations shall be conducted honestly so as to represent truly the wishes of their party constituents. The urgent duty of citizenship is to see to it that these party organizations are conducted honestly and in a representative manner; but this is not to be accomplished by disrupting or destroying the great parties. Instead of pulling down the temple, we should drive out the money-changers. Instead of killing we should cure. What we urgently need is legislation providing for fair and honest party primaries and facilitating independent candidacies, and then we should go farther and impose a penalty or tax upon all qualified citizens who fail to cast a ballot at the annual primaries and elections prescribed by law.

The initiative, the referendum and the recall would not cure present evils, but would in fact only intensify and perpetuate them. The power and control of unrepresentative and irresponsible party machines would be largely increased instead of being curtailed. Better men would not be nominated and elected, but quite the contrary; the self-seeker, advertiser and manipulator alone would be nominated. The exercise of the initiative, the referendum and the recall would be determined by exactly the same people who now control our nominations and elections. It is absurd to suppose that the very men who so often choose incapable or dishonest representatives or neglect to vote at all would exercise greater efficiency in supervising legislation, in recalling public officers and judges, or in setting aside judicial decisions.

Equally absurd is the idea of legislation by popular vote. The importance of framing laws and constitutional amendments in clear and exact language and the impracticability of doing so without careful consideration and discussion and comparison with existing provisions, as in legislative committees, must be recognized by all thinking men. Our system of laws is becoming more and more complex every year, and unavoidably so. The people at large cannot be expected to know and understand a great and extremely complex system of laws, and it is no reflection on them to say that they cannot grasp the details of legislation any more than it would be to say that there are few men in the community competent to administer as judges the unavoidably intricate system of laws under which we live.

We have only to look at recent experience in the state of New York in regard to the adoption of constitutional amendments, the most important function that can be exercised by a voter, to appreciate the folly of the proposed remedies. The total vote for and against these amendments has frequently been less than one-half--and at times barely one-quarter--of those who actually voted at general elections. Thus, to take three recent experiences: the total vote cast in 1909 on an important constitutional amendment was only 477,105 as against a total vote the year before of 1,638,350; the total vote in 1910 on another important constitutional amendment was 664,892 as against 1,445,249 votes for the gubernatorial candidates, and seven amendments submitted in 1911 were defeated with an average total vote of 621,678. Similar and even more striking experiences will be found in other states. Is it likely that there would be a fuller or more representative and intelligent expression of public understanding in regard to complex legislative enactments, or in regard to the recall of judges or other public officers, or of judicial decisions than we find now in the case of important constitutional amendments?

To render judges subject to recall would be utterly destructive of the character and independence of our judiciary. No self-respecting lawyer would serve on the bench under such conditions. An upright judge should fearlessly declare and enforce the law without regard to popular agitation or political pressure. Frequently he is called upon to decide between the individual on the one side and a clamorous majority on the other side of a case before him. Take, for example, our situation in New York with Tammany Hall controlling a majority of the voters of the city. The legislature at the dictation of Mr. Murphy passes another infamous Levy Election Law avowedly intended to prevent independent nominations even for the bench. The judges declare the act unconstitutional and protect the minority in their rights, just as we saw them protecting the Progressives a few weeks ago. According to Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Straus, however, Tammany Hall should have the power to punish these judges by recalling them and should have the right to pass such disgraceful and tyrannical legislation by resort to the initiative and the referendum! Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of a scheme more surely calculated to shatter all our constitutional rights, as well as all certainty in the law. Chief Justice Marshall would have been repeatedly recalled for unpopular decisions which are now universally applauded even by the Progressives. Imagine the spectacle of recalling a Cullen or a Gray because he had dared to decide against the clamor or wishes of a majority controlled by Tammany Hall!

I have nowhere seen a stronger statement of the objections to the recall of judges than in John Stuart Mill's work on "Representative Government," published in 1861, where he said: "If a judge could be removed from office by a popular vote, whoever was desirous of supplanting him would make capital for that purpose out of all his judicial decisions; would carry all of them, as far as he found practicable, by irregular appeal before a public opinion wholly incompetent, for want of having heard the case, or from having heard it without either the precautions or the impartiality belonging to a judicial hearing; would play upon popular passion and prejudice where they existed, and take pains to arouse them where they did not. And in this, if the case were interesting, and he took sufficient trouble, he would infallibly be successful, unless the judge or his friends descended into the arena, and made equally powerful appeals on the other side. Judges would end by feeling that they risked their office upon every decision they gave in a case susceptible of general interest, and that it was less essential for them to consider what decision was just, than what would be most applauded by the public, or would least admit of insidious misrepresentation."

Probably no more crude, impracticable, or absurd scheme was ever proposed by any one claiming to have the first and elemental ideas of American constitutional government than the proposition to render subject to recall or reversal by a majority vote all decisions in constitutional cases affecting statutes passed under the police power. The term "police power" is the most comprehensive that could have been employed. Most of our individual rights are covered by that term; and when the Progressives say that a statute passed under the police power shall be valid and enforceable, notwithstanding the courts may declare it to be arbitrary, unjust and unequal and hence unconstitutional, if a temporary majority see fit to overrule the courts, they propose that practically all the most vital and cherished of our supposed inalienable individual rights--our personal and religious liberty--shall in final result be at the mercy of any temporary majority. In ultimate analysis, the proposition for the recall of judicial decisions would mean that the majority should act as umpire in any dispute as between themselves and the minority.

The hatred of the courts which the Progressives now share in common with the Socialists, Anarchists and Populists, and that part of organized labor and labor unions typified and represented by such men as the McNamaras, the Debses and the Parks (who in truth shamefully misrepresent the great majority of law-abiding and patriotic members of these organizations), has forced into this campaign an unparalleled attack upon our judicial system and the administration of justice.

When the New York state Progressive platform was first given to the press on September 3rd, the judiciary plank read as follows: "We heartily indorse the declarations of our national platform respecting the judiciary and favor their embodiment in the organic law of the state. We condemn the past attitude of the New York Court of Appeals toward various important and humane measures of social legislation."

The unprecedented indecency of this attack upon the Court of Appeals immediately produced such a storm of indignation throughout the state that the clause appears later to have been amended so as to eliminate that sentence. The final form given to the public omits this denunciation of the highest court of our state, and confines the plank to the proposals of the national platform. I have time now to discuss only two of these planks.

The Progressives declare in their extraordinary and revolutionary platform: "We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited, when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed." This should be compared with substantially the same declaration in the Bryan platform of 1908, in which the Democratic party declared: "We deem ... that injunctions should not be issued in any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved."

It must seem incredible that the cultured and talented man who now stands on the Progressive platform soliciting the votes of the people was the President of the United States who in a formal message to Congress on January 31, 1908, on the subject of injunctions in labor disputes, used the following language: "Even though it were possible, I should consider it most unwise to abolish the use of the process of injunction. It is necessary in order that the courts may maintain their own dignity, and in order that they may in an effective manner check disorder and violence. The judge who uses it cautiously and conservatively, but who, when the need arises, uses it fearlessly, confers the greatest service upon our people, and his pre-eminent usefulness as a public servant should be heartily recognized."