CHAPTER V.

WHY NOT TRY THE INQUISITION?

“Never prescribe until you are called in,” is an excellent maxim, which like that other more pithy saying, “Mind your own business,” has one somewhat serious drawback. If they were construed literally and obeyed in spirit as well as in letter, what would become of the journalist’s business? For the chief business of the journalist is to look after other people’s business. To chronicle it in the first place; to comment upon it in the second. It is the privilege of the profession.

There is no cause for resenting the innocent liberty of criticism and suggestion which is exercised by the press. It can only too easily be ignored; nor has the journalist any means beyond the opportunity of representation and of persuasion for giving effect to his proposals. He has no authority except that which belongs to every man who sees things as they are, and the authority pertains to his ability to make others see them with his eyes rather than to his personal position. Hence those who object to the “damned impudence of the newspaper man” have only to shut their eyes and close their ears, to remove themselves effectively from the area of his jurisdiction.

The journalist who in the course of his public duty ventures to pry into “the secrets of the prison-house” is always met by its keepers with an outcry of indignation and resentment. “Why are you poking your nose in our affairs?” they cry in aggrieved chorus; “you stay at home and attend to your own business!” How often have we not heard that plausible demand put forward by the thieves and scoundrels and oppressors of the world, when first the adventurous newspaper man ventures to expose their misdeeds and suggest ways and means for curtailing their evil power. Tammany Bosses have often angrily denounced the meddling of the newspapers in their pickings and stealings. Nor is it only journalists who are met by this protest. We have seen how Police Commissioner McClave was distressed at the wickedness of the hayseed Senators up at Albany who sent the Lexow Committee to trouble the “honest men” of the Police Department. The evildoer who is waxing fat upon his misdeeds, always objects to any one interfering with his plunder. And as the accusation of officious meddling in “what is no concern of yours” is the first brick that lies handy for hurling at the head of the intruder, it is thrown accordingly.

The difficulty is immeasurably increased when the journalist is commenting on the affairs of another city or country than his own. For then the crooks can invoke the sentiment of offended patriotism, and shelter their picking and stealing behind the sacred folds of the national flag. When I was in Chicago five years ago I was seriously told by a distinguished American author that it was insufferable impertinence on my part to publish any opinion on current American affairs until I foreswore allegiance to the Queen and naturalised myself as an American citizen! I venture humbly and with all deference to suggest that if a cat may look at a king, it may be permitted to an English-speaking journalist to describe what he sees and to say what he thinks even concerning the affairs of those other English-speaking communities which prefer the Stars and Stripes to the Union Jack. This curious recrudescence of perverted nationalism which would deny the right of comment on American affairs to everyone not born or naturalised in the American Republic, is after all nothing more than a partial reversion to the savage’s jealousy of the stranger who was not a member of the tribe. Let us be thankful that the reversion is not complete, otherwise I should have cause for thankfulness that I escaped with my life.

We may, however, brush on one side these absurdities born of the morbid sensitiveness of the Half-grown, who are always suspecting that every word of criticism conceals an assumption of superiority, and a denial of the rights which the Full-grown regard as too self-evident to be questioned. Rational adults do not in these days require a certificate of origin before listening to the ideas of those who are interested in their affairs. The stranger, no doubt, will often make mistakes, which any tyro to the manner born would have avoided. He is like a Frenchman attempting to make a speech in English. But, despite his blunders in details, he looks at things from a different standpoint, he brings to their consideration the experience gained in other communities, and although he may make himself a fool now and then--which Lowell reminded us is one of the inalienable rights of man--he will often strike out new ideas which perhaps by their very absurdity may bear good fruit by rousing attention and provoking discussion.

At the close of this cursory survey of one of the gravest problems which can occupy the attention of mankind, the reader may fairly expect me to say whether I see any way out. Must we despair of democracy, then, after all, and abandon all hope of governing great cities by the time-honoured machinery of elective assemblies? Is the Dictator indispensable for the salvation of the Republic? And if we cannot get along without his authority, dare we not trust him to remove his ministers after the first eighth of his term of office?

If to these questions I venture to suggest any replies, I hope that I may not be accused of attempting arrogantly to dogmatise upon the solution of local problems the conditions of which it has been obviously impossible for me to master at first hand. I make no pretence to be free from bias or partiality. If my critics complain that my suggestions are based upon my inherited ingrained prejudices, strengthened by a professional instinct, rather than upon a scientific and judicial examination of all the facts, I make no demur. For in dealing with all these complex questions it is extremely difficult to eliminate the habit of mind that dates back to the cradle and beyond the cradle.

Hence, for instance, if I scout the notion that there is any reason for despairing of democracy even in New York City, this adoption of the watchword of “Never despair!” is due primarily to two antecedent convictions, neither of which has anything to do with the local circumstances of New York. One is a fundamental faith in the Providential government of the universe, the other a belief that in the evolution of human society, Democracy has arrived, and has come to stay. “Time brings not back the mastodon”; and, despite the present reversion to the tyrant of the old Greek city, in the shape of the Tsar-Mayor, I cannot believe that the great stream of progress is about to change its channel. I cannot believe that the American democracy is permanently forsaking what Jefferson regarded as the fundamental principle of democratic institutions. Jefferson’s familiar and weighty words--“As Cato concluded every speech with the words, _Delenda est Carthago_, so do I every opinion with the injunction, ‘Divide the counties into wards’”--embody advice that is in accord with all the traditions of the English-speaking race. I may be pardoned for believing that it expresses the sound principle of local self-government, rather than the new-fangled innovation of the vesting of all power in a Dictator elected by a mass vote of so huge a unit as a city of three millions.

If this be so, then it follows that it would be well to endeavour, as speedily as it could be done with safety, to regain the ancient ways, and return to fundamental principles by dividing the city into wards, and making the elected representatives of these wards the governing authority of New York. Until the Common Council--composed of representatives each directly elected by ward or district, and held personally responsible by the citizens in that ward for the efficient and honest discharge of his municipal duties--is restored to its natural position as the source and seat and centre of civic authority, it seems to me that we shall continue wandering in the wilderness. The elective assembly is the mainspring of the machine, and although you may turn the pointers round with the watchkey of a Tsar-Mayor, the watch will never keep right time till the mainspring is restored to its right place.

This, however, may only be an English prejudice. However frankly I may express my fear that the Tsar-Mayor will not prove a permanent source of security to the law-abiding, honest citizens, I shall be delighted if my forebodings are falsified by the event. For good or for ill the great experiment is to be tried, and the whole human race is interested in its success.

I come to safer ground when I say that, whether the centre of authority be the Tsar-Mayor or the Common Council, there is no security for the good government of the city except the public spirit and loyal co-operation of all good citizens. I know nothing more admirable than many of the recent efforts made by the Citizens’ Union and the Patriotic League of New York to arouse an intelligent interest in the community at large in the government of the city. The campaign of Education which has been going on for these last three years is a much more solid security for good government than any tinkering of the civic administrative machine. What seems to be most needed is, that the admirable work done in certain districts should be universalised and made equally effective in all quarters of Greater New York. The need for making general or universal the best work done in certain localities, points to the need of some central body, like the Civic Federation or Citizens’ Union, or Civic Centre, which would cover the same area as the civic administration, and within which it would seek to secure for all voluntary effort the same system and regularity and universality that is attained in the municipal service. Such a Civic Centre or nucleus for the co-operation of all societies and agencies, social, moral, intellectual and religious, would stand to the civic authorities much as the spiritual power stands to the State. A federation so constituted would be the Civic Church of the city; and the State without the Church, is the body without the soul.

These are broad general propositions, which seem to me to lie at the root of the whole matter. But I would not like to close this chapter without making one suggestion which, although it will be scouted at first and treated with ridicule and contempt, may nevertheless contain within it the germ of an institution which may remedy some of the more flagrant evils which afflict the body politic. The creation of the Tsar-Mayor shows that the American citizen is not hidebound by prejudice. In presence of the hideous abuses glanced at in the former chapters he has sacrificed his ancient prejudices against Despotism and the One Man power, in order to re-establish the Greek Tyrant as the autocrat of the American City. What I wish, with all deference, to suggest, is that having enthroned the Tyrannus, they should hasten to establish the Inquisition.

The proposition is made in all seriousness. As a palliative and corrective for the existing evils I see no suggested solution that holds out more promise.

I need not, I hope, explain that I do not suggest the resurrection of the old dread ecclesiastical tribunal, with its familiars and its _auto da fe_. Neither do I suggest that heretics should be burned alive in Madison Square. What I am after is much more serious business. The suggestion is the offspring of two facts, both unmistakably conspicuous in the contemporary history of New York. One is the emergence of a great journalistic ambition, not merely to chronicle, but to do. The other is the record of the Lexow Committee. The success of the latter in its work of investigation, together with the existence of the new ideal of journalistic duty, seem to suggest that the best immediate remedy for the malady of the body politic would be the establishment on a permanent footing of a Tribunal of Investigation and Inquisition, armed with all necessary powers, to administer oaths, to compel the attendance of witnesses, to commit for contempt, and to punish summarily for perjury. And I would further venture to suggest that in the Journalism that Acts there is here a field even more legitimate for the enterprise of the new journalists than breaking into a Spanish prison or dredging the river for the head of a murdered man.

To put it briefly, I would respectfully ask those who are in despair over the corruption that eats like a canker into the hearts of American cities, why not give statutory authority to American journalism to create, maintain and carry on a Lexow Committee _en permanence_, with extended powers for the purpose of discovering and handing over for punishment all those who are preying upon the public?

There is no remedy like the light of day. These evils exist in the midst of our communities because they can be done in secret. The crook in office relies upon the cloak of darkness. Tear away that cloak, proclaim the things done in secret upon the housetop, and the crook will walk in the straight path. The enterprise of the American newspaper is great. But although it can discover Livingstone and rescue Miss Cisneros, it cannot locate the boodler and prove who paid him the boodle. It may suspect. It may know, and it may accuse. But without its Lexow Committee it can neither prove nor convict.

It may be objected that to institute such a tribunal would be to create a frightful engine of tyranny, and that the remedy might be worse than the disease. The experience of the Star Chamber is not exactly reassuring.

But to this there are several answers. In the first place, beyond arming the proposed Inquisition with adequate powers to enforce attendance by subpœna, to punish contempt of court, and to impose summary penalties for perjury, it would not be vested with any power of inflicting punishment. Having ascertained the facts, it would hand over the guilty person to the ordinary civil and criminal tribunals, binding over all witnesses to appear when the case came on for trial. Its functions would be those of investigation, for the purpose of providing a case for the ordinary tribunals, so that there would be no interference with the safeguards provided by the law and the constitution for the liberty of the subject and the impartial administration of justice.

Secondly, the proceedings of the Inquisition would be from the first conducted under the full glare of publicity. Even if it were within its powers to hold a secret session, no action could be taken at such session until it had been confirmed in the light of day. Both at the inception and at the close of a case the Inquisition would be a public tribunal, liable to public criticism and amenable to public opinion. Its chief duty would be the obtaining of material in the shape of authentic information capable of being proved in court, for the protection of the public. It would, therefore, be unreasonable to fear that such a Court, whose _raison d’être_ is to bring evil out of the darkness into light, could be capable of the abuse which sprang up in the Star Chamber or the Inquisition, where secrecy made power irresponsible.

If it be admitted that such a tribunal might with advantage be created, the question would then arise how it should be constituted. The paralysis of faith in the integrity of the elected man which prevails in American citizens would seem to preclude any hope of securing a competent and inflexible Inquisitor-General by an appeal to the principle of popular election--direct or indirect. If, however, the Journalism that Acts is to be allowed to follow the natural path of evolution, it might perhaps be recognised as a power in the State, to whose initiative might be left by statute the task of appointing the Inquisitor and of bringing cases before the Inquisition. If the choice of Inquisitor-General were left to the journalists, each of whom is an inquisitor himself in his own way, you would at least have a small expert constituency, each member of which would have a direct interest in making a good selection. And if the duty of bringing cases before the Court were limited in the first instance to the journalists, the door would be closed against the irresponsible calumnies of miscellaneous scandal-mongers, for the only persons who could then set the tribunal in motion would be the newspaper, which would lose in prestige and in authority should it bring forward a case which on investigation proved to be baseless.

I am well aware that the suggestion will be ridiculed, and by no one so much as the journalist in whom the consciousness of his responsibility has not yet been evolved. But if the Journalism that Acts is to do its share in the cleansing of the Augean stable of municipal corruption, it could hardly find a more legitimate field for development than in providing a simple but effective tribunal for the purpose of dragging out of the darkness and secrecy in which they flourish those evils which can never be dealt with until they are accurately located, and brought within the range of public opinion by the searchlight of the Inquisition.