CHAPTER V
THE MIDDLE WEST IN POLITICS
_The great interior region bounded east by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets ... already has above 10,000,000 people, and will have 50,000,000 within fifty years if not prevented by any political folly or mistake. It contains more than one-third of the country owned by the United States--certainly more than 1,000,000 square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than 75,000,000 people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it.--Lincoln: Annual Message to Congress, December, 1862._
I
If a general participation in politics is essential to the successful maintenance of a democracy, then the people of the West certainly bear their share of the national burden. A great deal of history has been made in what Lincoln called “the great body of the republic,” and the election of 1916 indicated very clearly the growing power of the West in national contests, and a manifestation of independence that is not negligible in any conjectures as to the issues and leadership of the immediate future.
A few weeks before the last general election I crossed a Middle Western State in company with one of its senators, a veteran politician, who had served his party as State chairman and as chairman of the national committee. In the smoking compartment was a former governor of an Eastern State and several others, representing both the major parties, who were bound for various points along the line where they were to speak that night. In our corner the talk was largely reminiscent of other times and bygone statesmen. Republicans and Democrats exchanged anecdotes with that zest which distinguishes the Middle Western politician, men of one party paying tribute to the character and ability of leaders of the other in a fine spirit of magnanimity. As the train stopped, from time to time, the United States senator went out upon the platform and shook hands with friends and acquaintances, or received reports from local leaders. Everybody on the train knew him; many of the men called him by his first name. He talked to the women about their children and asked about their husbands. The whole train caught the spirit of his cheer and friendliness, and yet he had been for a dozen years the most abused man in his State. This was all in the day’s work, a part of what has been called the great American game. The West makes something intimate and domestic of its politics, and the idea that statesmen must “keep close to the people” is not all humbug, not at least in the sense that they hold their power very largely through their social qualities. They must, as we say, be “folks.”
Apart from wars, the quadrennial presidential campaigns are America’s one great national expression in terms of drama; but through months in which the average citizen goes about his business, grateful for a year free of political turmoil, the political machinery is never idle. No matter how badly defeated a party may be, its State organization must not be permitted to fall to pieces; for the perfecting of an organization demands hard work and much money. There is always a great deal of inner plotting preliminary to a State or national contest, and much of this is wholly without the knowledge of the quiet citizen whose active interests are never aroused until a campaign is well launched. In State capitals and other centres men meet, as though by chance, and in hotel-rooms debate matters of which the public hears only when differences have been reconciled and a harmonious plan of action has been adopted. Not a day passes even in an “off year” when in the corn belt men are not travelling somewhere on political errands. There are fences to repair, local conditions to analyze, and organizations to perfect against the coming of the next campaign. In a Western State I met within the year two men who had just visited their governor for the purpose of throwing some “pep” into him. They had helped to elect him and felt free to beard him in the capitol to caution him as to his conduct. It is impossible to step off a train anywhere between Pittsburgh and Denver without becoming acutely conscious that much politics is forward. One campaign “doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast they follow.” This does not mean merely that the leaders in party organizations meet constantly for conferences, or that candidates are plotting a long way ahead to secure nominations, but that the great body of the people--the Folks themselves--are ceaselessly discussing new movements or taking the measure of public servants.
The politician lives by admiration; he likes to be pointed out, to have men press about him to shake his hand. He will enter a State convention at just the right moment to be greeted with a cheer, of which a nonchalant or deprecatory wave of the hand is a sufficient recognition. Many small favors of which the public never dreams are granted to the influential politician, even when he is not an office-holder--favors that mean much to him, that contribute to his self-esteem. A friend who was secretary for several years of one of the national committees had a summer home by a quiet lake near an east-and-west railway-line. When, during a campaign, he was suddenly called to New York or Chicago he would wire the railway authorities to order one of the fast trains to pick him up at a lonely station, which it passed ordinarily at the highest speed. My friend derived the greatest satisfaction from this concession to his prominence and influence. Men who affect to despise politicians of the party to which they are opposed are nevertheless flattered by any attention from them, and they will admit, when there is no campaign forward, that in spite of their politics they are mighty good fellows. And they _are_ good fellows; they have to be to retain their hold upon their constituents. There are exceptions to the rule that to succeed in politics one must be a good fellow, a folksy person, but they are few. Cold, crafty men who are not “good mixers” may sometimes gain a great deal of power, but in the Western provinces they make poor candidates. The Folks don’t like ’em!
Outside of New York and Pennsylvania, where much the same phenomena are observable, there is no region where the cards are so tirelessly shuffled as in the Middle Western commonwealths, particularly in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas, which no party can pretend to carry jauntily in its pocket. Men enjoy the game because of its excitement, its potentialities of preferment, the chance that a few votes delivered in the right quarter may upset all calculations and send a lucky candidate for governor on his way to the Federal Senate or even to the White House. And in country towns where there isn’t much to do outside of routine business the practice of politics is a welcome “side-line.” There is a vast amount of fun to be got out of it; and one who is apt at the game may win a county office or “go” to the legislature.
To be summoned from a dull job in a small town to a conference called suddenly and mysteriously at the capital, to be invited to sit at the council-table with the leaders, greatly arouses the pride and vanity of men to whom, save for politics, nothing of importance ever happens. There are, I fancy, few American citizens who don’t hug the delusion that they have political “influence.” This vanity is responsible for much party regularity. To have influence a man must keep his record clear of any taint of independence, or else he must be influential enough as an independent to win the respect of both sides, and this latter class is exceedingly small. At some time in his life every citizen seeks an appointment for a friend, or finds himself interested in local or State or national legislation. It is in the mind of the contributor to a campaign fund that the party of his allegiance has thus a concrete expression of his fidelity, and if he “wants something” he has opened a channel through which to make a request with a reasonable degree of confidence that it will not be ignored. There was a time when it was safe to give to both sides impartially so that no matter who won the battle the contributor would have established an obligation; but this practice has not worked so satisfactorily since the institution of publicity for campaign assessments.
It is only immediately after an election that one hears criticisms of party management from within a party. A campaign is a great time-eater, and when a man has given six months or possibly a year of hard work to making an aggressive fighting machine of his party he is naturally grieved when it goes down in defeat. In the first few weeks following the election of 1916 Western Republicans complained bitterly of the conduct of the national campaign. Unhappily, no amount of _a posteriori_ reasoning can ever determine whether, if certain things had been handled differently, a result would have been changed. If Mr. Hughes had not visited California, or, venturing into that commonwealth, he had shaken the hand of Governor Hiram Johnson, or if he had remained quietly on his veranda at home and made no speeches, would he have been elected President? Speculations of this kind may alleviate the poignancy of defeat, but as a political situation is rarely or never repeated they are hardly profitable.
There are phases of political psychology that defy analysis. For example, in doubtful States there are shifting moods of hope and despair which are wholly unrelated to tangible events and not reconcilable with “polls” and other pre-election tests. Obscure influences and counter-currents may be responsible, but often the politicians do not attempt to account for these alternations of “feeling.” When, without warning, the barometer at headquarters begins to fall, even the messengers and stenographers are affected. The gloom may last for a day or two or even for a week; then the chairman issues a statement “claiming” everything, every one takes heart of hope, and the dread spectre of defeat steals away to the committee-rooms of the opposition.
An interesting species are the oracles whose views are sought by partisans anxious for trustworthy “tips.” These “medicine-men” may not be actively engaged in politics, or only hangers-on at headquarters, but they are supposed to be endowed with the gift of prophecy. I know several such seers whose views on no other subject are entitled to the slightest consideration, and yet I confess to a certain respect for their judgment as to the outcome of an election. Late in the fall of 1916, at a time when the result was most uncertain, a friend told me that he was wagering a large sum on Mr. Wilson’s success. Asked to explain his confidence, he said he was acting on the advice of an obscure citizen, whom he named, who always “guessed right.” This prophet’s reasoning was wholly by inspiration; he had a “hunch.” State and county committee-rooms are infested with elderly men who commune among themselves as to old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago, and wait for a chance to whisper some rumor into the ear of a person of importance. Their presence and their misinformation add little to the joy of the engrossed, harassed strategists, who spend much time dodging them, but appoint a subordinate of proved patience to listen to their stories.
To be successful a State chairman must possess a genius for organization and administration, and a capacity for quick decision and action. While he must make no mistakes himself, it is his business to correct the blunders of his lieutenants and turn to good account the errors of his adversary. He must know how and where to get money, and how to use it to the best advantage. There are always local conditions in his territory that require judicious handling, and he must deal with these personally or send just the right man to smooth them out. Harmony is the great watchword, and such schisms as that of the Sound Money Democrats in 1896, the Progressive split of 1912, and the frequent anti-organization fights that are a part of the great game leave much harsh jangling behind.
The West first kicked up its heels in a national campaign in the contest of 1840, when William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia who had won renown as a soldier in the Ohio Valley and served as governor of the Northwest Territory, was the Whig candidate. The campaign was flavored with hard cider and keyed to the melody of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” The log cabin, with a raccoon on the roof or with a pelt of the species nailed to the outer wall, and a cider-barrel seductively displayed in the foreground, were popular party symbols. The rollicking campaign songs of 1840 reflect not only the cheery pioneer spirit but the bitterness of the contest between Van Buren and Harrison. One of the most popular ballads was a buckeye-cabin song sung to the tune of “The Blue Bells of Scotland”:
“Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go? Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go? It goes against the spoilsman, for well its builders know It was Harrison who fought for the cabins long ago.
Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who? Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who? He drove the savage legions and British armies, too, At the Rapids and the Thames and old Tippecanoe.
Oh, what, tell me what will little Martin do? Oh, what, then, what will little Martin do? He’ll follow the footsteps of Price and Swartout, too, While the log cabins ring again with Tippecanoe!”
The spirit of the ’40’s pervaded Western politics for many years after that strenuous campaign. Men who had voted for “Tippecanoe” Harrison were pointed out as citizens of unusual worth and dignity in my youth; and organizations of these veterans were still in existence and attentive to politics when Harrison’s grandson was a candidate for the Presidency.
I find myself referring frequently to the continuing influence of the Civil War in the social and political life of these Western States. The “soldier vote” was long to be reckoned with, and it was not until Mr. Cleveland brought a new spirit into our politics that the war between the States began to fade as a political factor; and even then we were assured that if the Democrats succeeded they would pension Confederate soldiers and redeem the Confederate bonds. There were a good many of us in these border States who, having been born of soldier fathers, and with Whig and Republican antecedents, began to resent the continued emphasis of the war in every campaign; and I look back upon Mr. Cleveland’s rise as of very great importance in that he was a messenger of new and attractive ideals of public service that appealed strongly to young men. But my political apostasy (I speak of my own case because it is in some sense typical) was attended with no diminution of reverence for that great citizen army that defended and saved the Union. The annual gatherings of the Grand Army of the Republic have grown pathetically smaller, but this organization is not a negligible expression of American democracy. The writing of these pages has been interrupted constantly by bugle-calls floating in from the street, by the cheers of crowds wishing Godspeed to our young army in its high adventure beyond the Atlantic, and at the moment, by stirring news of American valor and success in France. In my boyhood I viewed with awe and admiration the veterans of ’61-’65 and my patriotism was deeply influenced by the atmosphere in which I was born, by acquaintance with my father’s comrades, and quickened through my formative years by attendance at encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic and cheery “camp-fires” in the hall of George H. Thomas Post, Indianapolis, where privates and generals met for story-telling and the singing of war-songs. The honor which it was part of my education should be accorded those men will, I reflect, soon be the portion of their grandsons, the men of 1917-18, and we shall have very likely a new Grand Army of the Republic, with the difference that the descendants of men who fought under Grant and Sherman will meet at peaceful “camp-fires” with grandsons of the soldiers of Lee and Jackson, quite unconscious that this was ever other than a united nation.
II
The West has never lost its early admiration for oratory, whether from the hustings, the pulpit, or the lecture-platform. Many of the pioneer preachers of the Ohio valley were orators of distinguished ability, and their frequent joint debates on such subjects as predestination and baptism drew great audiences from the countryside. Both religious and political meetings were held preferably out of doors to accommodate the crowds that collected from the far-scattered farms. A strong voice, a confident manner, and matter so composed as to hold the attention of an audience which would not hesitate to disperse if it lost interest were prerequisites of the successful speaker. Western chronicles lay great stress upon the oratorical powers of both ministers and politicians. Henry Ward Beecher, who held a pastorate at Indianapolis (1839-47), was already famed as an eloquent preacher before he moved to Brooklyn. Not long ago I heard a number of distinguished politicians discussing American oratory. Some one mentioned the addresses delivered by Beecher in England during the Civil War, and there was general agreement that one of these, the Liverpool speech, was probably the greatest of American orations--a sweeping statement, but its irresistible logic and a sense of the hostile atmosphere in which it was spoken may still be felt in the printed page.
The tradition of Lincoln’s power as an orator is well fortified by the great company of contemporaries who wrote of him, as well as by the text of his speeches, which still vibrate with the nobility, the restrained strength, with which he addressed himself to mighty events. Neither before nor since his day has the West spoken to the East with anything approaching the majesty of his Cooper Union speech. It is certainly a far cry from that lofty utterance to Mr. Bryan’s defiant cross-of-gold challenge of 1896.
The Westerner will listen attentively to a man he despises and has no intention of voting for, if he speaks well; but the standards are high. There is a death-watch that occupies front seats at every political meeting, composed of veterans who compare all later performances with some speech they heard Garfield or “Dan” Voorhees, Oliver P. Morton or John J. Ingalls deliver before the orator spouting on the platform was born. Nearly all the national conventions held in the West have been marked by memorable oratory. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll’s speech nominating Blaine at the Republican convention of 1876 held at Cincinnati (how faint that old battle-cry has become: “Blaine, Blaine, Blaine of Maine!”) is often cited as one of the great American orations. “He swayed and moved and impelled and restrained and worked in all ways with the mass before him,” says the Chicago _Times_ report, “as if he possessed some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the human heart, and when he finished, his fine, frank face as calm as when he began, the overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable wonder and delight.”
Even making allowance for the reporter’s exuberance, this must have been a moving utterance, with its dramatic close:
“Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this gallant leader now is as though an army should desert their gallant general upon the field of battle.... Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois, Illinois nominates for the next President of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders--James G. Blaine.”
In the fall of the same year Ingersoll delivered at Indianapolis an address to war veterans that is still cited for its peroration beginning: “The past rises before me like a dream.”
The political barbecue, common in pioneer days, is about extinct, though a few such gatherings were reported in the older States of the Middle West in the last campaign. These functions, in the day of poor roads and few settlements, were a means of luring voters to a meeting with the promise of free food; it was only by such heroic feats of cookery as the broiling of a whole beef in a pit of coals that a crowd could be fed. The meat was likely to be either badly burnt, or raw, but the crowds were not fastidious, and swigs of whiskey made it more palatable. Those were days of plain speech and hard hitting, and on such occasions orators were expected to “cut loose” and flay the enemy unsparingly.
Speakers of the rabble-rouser type have passed out, though there are still orators who proceed to “shell the woods” and “burn the grass” in the old style in country districts where they are not in danger of being reported. This, however, is full of peril, as the farmer’s credulity is not so easily played upon as in the old days before the R. F. D. box was planted at his gate. The farmer is the shrewdest, the most difficult, of auditors. He is little given to applause, but listens meditatively, and is not easily to be betrayed into demonstrations of approval. The orator’s chance of scoring a hit before an audience of country folk depends on his ability to state his case with an appearance of fairness and to sustain it with arguments presented in simple, picturesque phraseology. Nothing could be less calculated to win the farmer’s franchise than any attempt to “play down” to him. In old times the city candidate sometimes donned his fishing-clothes before venturing into country districts, but some of the most engaging demagogues the West has known appeared always in their finest raiment.
There has always been a considerable sprinkling of women at big Indiana rallies and also at State conventions, as far back as my memory runs; but women, I am advised, were rarely in evidence at political meetings in the West until Civil War times. The number who attended meetings in 1916 was notably large, even in States that have not yet granted general suffrage. They are most satisfactory auditors, quick to catch points and eagerly responsive with applause. The West has many women who speak exceedingly well, and the number is steadily growing. I have never heard heckling so cleverly parried as by a young woman who spoke on a Chicago street corner, during the sessions of the last Republican convention, to a crowd of men bent upon annoying her. She was unfailingly good-humored, and her retorts, delivered with the utmost good nature, gradually won the sympathy of her hearers.
The making of political speeches is exhausting labor, and only the possessor of great bodily vigor can make a long tour without a serious drain upon his physical and nervous energy. Mr. Bryan used to refer with delight to the manner in which Republicans he met, unable to pay him any other compliment, expressed their admiration for his magnificent constitution, which made it possible for him to speak so constantly without injury to his health. The fatiguing journeys, the enforced adjustment to the crowds of varying size in circumstances never twice alike, the handshaking and the conferences with local committees to which prominent speakers must submit make speaking-tours anything but the triumphal excursions they appear to be to the cheering audiences. The weary orator arrives at a town to find that instead of snatching an hour’s rest he must yield to the importunity of a committee intrusted with the responsibility of showing him the sights of the city, with probably a few brief speeches at factories; and after a dinner, where he will very likely be called upon to say “just a few words,” he must ride in a procession through the chill night before he addresses the big meeting. One of the most successful of Western campaigners is Thomas R. Marshall, of Indiana, twice Mr. Wilson’s running mate on the presidential ticket. In 1908 Mr. Marshall was the Democratic candidate for governor and spoke in every county in the State, avoiding the usual partisan appeals, but preaching a political gospel of good cheer, with the result that he was elected by a plurality of 14,453, while Mr. Taft won the State’s electoral vote by a plurality of 10,731. Mr. Marshall enjoys a wide reputation as a story-teller, both for the humor of his narratives and the art he brings to their recital.
A few dashes of local color assist in establishing the visiting orator on terms of good-fellowship with his audience. He will inform himself as to the number of broom-handles or refrigerators produced annually in the town, or the amount of barley and buckwheat that last year rewarded the toil of the noble husbandmen of the county. It is equally important for him to take counsel of the local chairman as to things to avoid, for there are sore spots in many districts which must be let alone or touched with a healing hand. The tyro who prepares a speech with the idea of giving it through a considerable territory finds quickly that the sooner he forgets his manuscript the better, so many are the concessions he must make to local conditions.
In the campaign of 1916 the Democrats made strenuous efforts to win the Progressive vote. Energetic county chairmen would lure as many Progressives as possible to the front seats at all meetings that they might learn of the admiration in which they were held by forward-looking Democrats--the bond of sympathy, the common ideals, that animated honest Democrats and their brothers, those patriotic citizens who, long weary of Republican indifference to the rights of freemen, had broken the ties of a lifetime to assert their independence. Democratic orators, with the Progressives in mind, frequently apostrophized Lincoln, that they might the better contrast the vigorous, healthy Republicanism of the ’60’s with the corrupt, odious thing the Republican party had become. This, of course, had to be done carefully, so that the Progressive would not experience twinges of homesickness for his old stamping-ground.
There is agreement among political managers as to the doubtful value of the “monster meetings” that are held in large centres. With plenty of money to spend and a thorough organization, it is always possible to “pull off” a big demonstration. Word passed to ward and precinct committeemen will collect a vast crowd for a parade adorned with fireworks. The size and enthusiasm of these crowds is never truly significant of party strength. One such crowd looks very much like another, and I am betraying no confidence in saying that its units are often drawn from the same sources. The participants in a procession rarely hear the speeches at the meeting of which they are the advertisement. When they reach the hall it is usually filled and their further function is to march down the aisles with bands and drum-corps to put the crowd in humor for the speeches. Frequently some belated phalanx will noisily intrude after the orator has been introduced, and he must smile and let it be seen that he understands perfectly that the interruption is due to the irrepressible enthusiasm of the intelligent voters of the grand old blank district that has never failed to support the principles of the grand old blank party.
The most satisfactory meetings are small ones, in country districts, where one or two hundred people of all parties gather, drawn by an honest curiosity as to the issues. Such meetings impose embarrassments upon the speaker, who must accommodate manner and matter to auditors disconcertingly close at hand, of whose reaction to his talk he is perfectly conscious. In an “all-day” meeting, held usually in groves that serve as rural social centres, the farmers remain in their automobiles drawn into line before the speakers’ stand, and listen quietly to the programme arranged by the county chairman. Sometimes several orators are provided for the day; Republicans may take the morning, the Democrats the afternoon. Here, with the audience sitting as a jury, we have one of the processes of democracy reduced to its simplest terms.
The West is attracted by statesmen who are “human,” who impress themselves upon the Folks by their amiability and good-fellowship. Benjamin Harrison was recognized as one of the ablest lawyers of the bar of his day, but he was never a popular hero and his defeat for re-election was attributable in large degree to his lack of those qualities that constitute what I have called “folksiness.” In the campaign of 1888 General Harrison suffered much from the charge that he was an aristocrat, and attention was frequently called to the fact that he was the grandson of a President. Among other cartoons of the period there was one that represented Harrison as a pigmy standing in the shadow of his grandfather’s tall hat. This was probably remembered by an Indiana politician who called at the White House repeatedly without being able to see the President. After several fruitless visits the secretary said to him one day: “The President cannot be seen.” “My God!” exclaimed the enraged office-seeker, “has he grown as small as that?”
Probably no President has ever enjoyed greater personal popularity than Mr. McKinley. He would perform an act of kindness with a graciousness that doubled its value and he could refuse a favor without making an enemy. Former Governor Glynn of New York told me not long ago an incident illuminative of the qualities that endeared Mr. McKinley to his devoted followers. Soon after his inauguration a Democratic congressman from an Eastern State delivered in the House a speech filled with the bitterest abuse of the President. A little later this member’s wife, not realizing that a savage attack of this sort would naturally make its author _persona non grata_ at the White House, expressed a wish to take her young children to call on the President. The youngsters were insistent in their demand to make the visit and would not be denied. The offending representative confessed his embarrassment to Mr. Glynn, a Democratic colleague, who said he’d “feel out” the President. Mr. McKinley, declaring at once with the utmost good humor that he would be delighted to receive the lady and her children, named a day and met them with the greatest cordiality. He planted the baby on his desk to play, put them all at ease, and as they left distributed among them a huge bouquet of carnations that he had ordered specially from the conservatory. In this connection I am reminded of a story of Thomas B. Reed, who once asked President Harrison to appoint a certain constituent collector at Portland. The appointment went to another candidate for the office, and when one of Reed’s friends twitted him about his lack of influence he remarked: “There are only two men in the whole State of Maine who hate me: one of them I landed in the penitentiary, and the other one Harrison has appointed collector of the port in my town!”
III
Statesmen of the “picturesque” school, who attracted attention by their scorn of conventions, or their raciness of speech, or for some obsession aired on every occasion, are well-nigh out of the picture. The West is not without its sensitiveness, and it has found that a sockless congressman, or one who makes himself ridiculous by advocating foolish measures, reflects upon the intelligence of his constituents or upon their sense of humor, and if there is anything the West prides itself upon it is its humor. We are seeing fewer statesmen of the type so blithely represented by Mr. Cannon, who enjoy in marked degree the affections of their constituents; who are kindly uncles to an entire district, not to be displaced, no matter what their shortcomings, without genuine grief. One is tempted far afield in pursuit of the elements of popularity, of which the West offers abundant material for analysis. “Dan” Voorhees, “the tall sycamore of the Wabash,” was prominent in Indiana politics for many years, and his fine figure, his oratorical gifts, his sympathetic nature and reputation for generosity endeared him to many who had no patience with his politics. He was so effective as an advocate in criminal cases that the Indiana law giving defendants the final appeal was changed so that the State might counteract the influence of his familiar speech, adjustable to any case, which played upon the sympathy and magnanimity of the jurors. Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio, a man of higher intellectual gifts, was similarly enshrined in the hearts of his constituency. His bandanna was for years the symbol of Buckeye democracy, much as “blue jeans” expressed the rugged simplicity of the Hoosier democracy when, in 1876, the apparel of James D. Williams, unwisely ridiculed by the Republicans, contributed to his election to the governorship over General Harrison, the “kid-glove” candidate. Kansas was much in evidence in those years when it was so ably represented in the Senate by the brilliant John J. Ingalls. Ingalls’s oratory was enriched by a fine scholarship and enlivened by a rare gift of humor and a biting sarcasm. Once when a Pennsylvania colleague attacked Kansas Ingalls delivered a slashing reply. “Mr. President,” he said, “Pennsylvania has produced but two great men: Benjamin Franklin, of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland.” On another occasion Voorhees of the blond mane aroused Ingalls’s ire and the Kansan excoriated the Hoosier in a characteristic deliverance, an incident thus neatly epitomized by Eugene F. Ware, (“Ironquill”), a Kansas poet:
“Cyclone dense, Lurid air, Wabash hair, Hide on fence.”
Nothing is better calculated to encourage humility in young men about to enter upon a political career than a study of the roster of Congress for years only lightly veiled in “the pathos of distance.” Among United States senators from the Middle West in 1863-9 were Lyman Trumbull, Richard J. Oglesby, and Richard Yates, of Illinois; Henry S. Lane, Oliver P. Morton, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana; James Harlan and Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Samuel C. Pomeroy and James H. Lane, of Kansas; Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan; Alexander Ramsey and Daniel S. Norton, of Minnesota; Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman, of Ohio.
In the lower house sat Elihu B. Washburne, Owen Lovejoy, and William R. Morrison, of Illinois; Schuyler Colfax, George W. Julian, Daniel W. Voorhees, William S. Holman, and Godlove S. Orth, of Indiana; William B. Allison, Josiah B. Grinnell, John A. Kasson, and James F. Wilson, of Iowa; James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio. In the same group of States in the ’80’s we find David Davis, John A. Logan, Joseph E. McDonald, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas W. Ferry, Henry P. Baldwin, William Windom, Samuel J. R. McMillan, Algernon S. Paddock, Alvin Saunders, M. H. Carpenter, John J. Ingalls, and Preston B. Plumb, all senators in Congress. In this same period the Ohio delegation in the lower house included Benjamin Butterworth, A. J. Warner, Thomas Ewing, Charles Foster, Frank H. Hurd, J. Warren Keifer, and William McKinley.
How many students in the high schools and colleges of these States would recognize any considerable number of these names or have any idea of the nature of the public service these men performed? To be sure, three representatives in Congress from Ohio in the years indicated, and one senator from Indiana, reached the White House; but at least two-thirds of the others enjoyed a wide reputation, either as politicians or statesmen or as both. In the years preceding the Civil War the West certainly did not lack leadership, nor did all who rendered valuable service attain conspicuous place. For example, George W. Julian, an ardent foe of slavery, a member of Congress, and in 1852 a candidate for Vice-President on the Free Soil ticket, was a political idealist, independent and courageous, and with the ability to express his opinions tersely and effectively.
It is always hazardous to compare the statesmen of one period with those of another, and veteran observers whose judgments must be treated with respect insist that the men I have mentioned were not popularly regarded in their day as the possessors of unusual abilities. Most of these men were prominent in my youth, and in some cases were still important factors when I attained my majority, and somehow they seem to “mass” as their successors do not. The fierce passions aroused in the Middle West by the slavery issue undoubtedly brought into the political arena men who in calmer times would have remained contentedly in private life. The restriction of slavery and the preservation of the Union were concrete issues that awakened a moral fervor not since apparent in our politics. Groups of people are constantly at work in the social field, to improve municipal government, or to place State politics upon a higher plane; but these movements occasion only slight tremors in contrast with the quaking of the earth through the free-soil agitation, Civil War, and reconstruction.
The men I have mentioned were, generally speaking, poor men, and the next generation found it much more comfortable and profitable to practise law or engage in business than to enter politics. I am grieved by my inability to offer substantial proof that ideals of public service in the Western provinces are higher than they were fifty or twenty years ago. I record my opinion that they are not, and that we are less ably served in the Congress than formerly, frankly to invite criticism; for these times call for a great searching for the weaknesses of democracy and, if the best talent is not finding its way into the lawmaking, administrative, and judicial branches of our State and federal governments, an obligation rests upon every citizen to find the reason and supply the remedy.
No Westerner who is devoted to the best interests of his country will encourage the belief that there is any real hostility between East and West, or that the West is incapable of viewing social and political movements in the light of reason and experience. It stood steadfastly against the extension of slavery and for the Union through years of fiery trial, and its leaders expressed the national thought and held the lines firm against opposition, concealed and open, that was kept down only by ceaseless vigilance. Even in times of financial stress it refused to hearken to the cry of the demagogue, and Greenbackism died, just as later Populism died. More significant was the failure of Mr. Bryan to win the support of the West that was essential to his success in three campaigns. We may say that it was a narrow escape, and that the West was responsible for a serious menace and a peril not too easily averted, but Mr. Bryan precipitated a storm that was bound to break and that left the air clearer. He “threw a scare” into the country just when it needed to be aroused, and some of his admonitions have borne good fruit on soil least friendly to him.
The West likes to be “preached at,” and it admires a courageous evangelist even when it declines his invitation to the mourners’ bench. The West liked and still likes Mr. Roosevelt, and no other American can so instantly gain the ear of the West as he. In my pilgrimages of the past year nothing has been more surprising than the change of tone with reference to the former President among Western Republicans, who declared in 1912 and reiterated in 1916 that never, never again would they countenance him.[E]
IV
One may find in the Mississippi valley, as in the Connecticut valley or anywhere else in America, just about what one wishes to find. A New England correspondent complains with some bitterness of the political conservatism he encountered in a journey through the West; he had expected to find radicalism everywhere rampant, and was disappointed that he was unable to substantiate his preconceived impression by actual contacts with the people.
If I may delicately suggest the point without making too great a concession, the West is really quite human. It has its own “slant”--its tastes and preferences that differ in ways from those of the East, the South, or the farther West; and radicals are distributed through the corn belt in about the same proportion as elsewhere. The bread-and-butter Western Folks are pretty sensible, taken in the long run, and not at all anxious to pull down the social pillars just to make a noise. They will impiously carve them a little--yes, and occasionally stick an incongruous patch on the wall of the sanctuary of democracy; but they are never wilfully destructive. And it cannot be denied that some of their architectural and decorative efforts have improved the original design. The West has saved other sections a good deal of trouble by boldly experimenting with devices it had “thought up” amid the free airs of the plains; but the West, no more than the East, will give storage to a contrivance that has been proved worthless.
The vindictive spirit that was very marked in the Western attitude toward the railroads for many years was not a gratuitous and unfounded hatred of corporations, but had a real basis in discriminations that touched vitally the life of the farmer and the struggling towns to which he carried his products. The railroads were the only corporations the West knew before the great industrial development. A railroad represented “capital,” and “capital” was therefore a thing to chastise whenever opportunity offered. It has been said in bitterness of late that the hostile legislation demanded by the West “ruined the railroads.” This is not a subject for discussion here, but it can hardly be denied that the railroads invited the war that was made upon them by injustices and discriminations of which the obscure shipper had a right to complain. The antagonism to railroads inspired a great deal of radicalism aimed at capital generally, and “corporate greed,” “the encroachments of capital,” “the money devils of Wall Street,” and “special privilege” burned fiercely in our political terminology. Our experiment with government control as a war measure has, of course, given a new twist to the whole transportation problem.
The West likes to play with novelties. It has been hospitable to such devices as the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, multiplied agencies for State supervision in many directions, and it has shown in general a confidence in automatic machinery popularly designed to correct all evils. The West probably infected the rest of the country with the fallacy that the passing of a law is a complete transaction without reference to its enforcement, and Western statute-books are littered with legislation often frivolous or ill considered. There has, however, been a marked reaction and the demand is rather for less legislation and better administration. A Western governor said to me despairingly that his State is “commissioned” to death, and that he is constantly embarrassed by the difficulty of persuading competent men to accept places on his many bipartisan regulative boards.
There is a virtue in our very size as a nation and the multiplicity of interests represented by the one hundred million that make it possible for the majority to watch, as from a huge amphitheatre, the experiments in some particular arena. A new agrarian movement that originated in North Dakota in 1915 has attained formidable proportions. The Non-Partisan League (it is really a political party) seems to have sprung full-panoplied from the Equity Society, and is a successor of the Farmers’ Alliance and Populism. The despised middleman was the first object of its animosity, and it began with a comprehensive programme of State-owned elevators and flour-mills, packing-houses and cold-storage plants. The League carried North Dakota in 1916, electing a governor who immediately vetoed a bill providing for a State-owned terminal elevator because the League leaders “raised their sights” as soon as they got into the trenches. They demanded unlimited bonding-power and a complete new programme embodying a radical form of State socialism. “Class struggle,” says Mr. Elmer T. Peterson, an authority on the League’s history, “is the key-note of its propaganda.” The student of current political tendencies will do well to keep an eye on the League, as it has gained a strong foothold in the Northwest, and the co-operative features of its platform satisfy an old craving of the farmer for State assistance in the management of his business.
The League is now thoroughly organized in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado and is actively at work in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Governor Burnquist of Minnesota addressed a letter to its executive secretary during the primary campaign last summer in which he said:
At the time of our entrance into the European conflict your organization condemned our government for entering the war. When it became evident that this course would result in disaster for their organization they changed their course and made an eleventh-hour claim to pure loyalty, but notwithstanding this claim the National Non-Partisan League is a party of discontent. It has drawn to it the pro-German element of our State. Its leaders have been closely connected with the lawless I. W. W. and with Red Socialists. Pacifists and peace advocates whose doctrines are of benefit to Germany are among their number.
The League’s activities in obstructing conscription and other war measures have been the subject of investigation by military and civil authorities. The _Leader_, the official organ of the party, recently printed, heavily capitalized, this sentiment, “The Government of the People by the Rascals for the Rich,” as the key-note of its hostility to America’s participation in the war.
The West is greatly given to sober second thoughts. Hospitable to new ideas as it has proved itself to be, it will stop short of a leap in the dark. There is a point at which it becomes extremely conservative. It will run like a frightened rabbit from some change which it has encouraged. But the West has a passion for social justice, and is willing to make sacrifices to gain it. The coming of the war found this its chief concern, not under the guidance of feverish agitators but from a sense that democracy, to fulfil its destiny, must make the conditions of life happy and comfortable for the great body of the people. It is not the “pee-pul” of the demagogue who are to be reckoned with in the immediate future of Western political expression, but an intelligent, earnest citizenry, anxious to view American needs with the new vision compelled by the world struggle in the defense of democracy.
The rights and privileges of citizenship long enjoyed by women of certain Western States ceased to be a vagary of the untutored wilds when last year New York adopted a constitutional amendment granting women the ballot. The fight for a federal amendment was won in the House last winter by a narrow margin, but at this writing the matter is still pending in the Senate. Many of the old arguments against the enfranchisement of women have been pretty effectually disposed of in States that were pioneers in general suffrage. I lived for three years in Colorado without being conscious of any of those disturbances to domesticity that we used to be told would follow if women were projected into politics. I can testify that a male voter may register and cast his ballot without any feeling that the women he encounters as he performs these exalted duties have relinquished any of the ancient prerogatives of their womanhood.
There is nothing in the experience of suffrage States to justify a suspicion that women are friendlier to radical movements than men, but much to sustain the assertion that they take their politics seriously and are as intelligent in the exercise of the ballot as male voters. The old notion that the enfranchisement of women would double the vote without changing results is another fallacy; I am disposed to think them more independent than their male fellow citizens and less likely to submit meekly to party dictation.
In practically every American court- and State-house and city hall there are women holding responsible clerical positions, and, if the keeping of important records may be intrusted to women, the task of defending their exclusion from elective offices is one that I confess to be beyond my powers. Nor is there anything shocking in the presence of a woman on the floor of a legislative body. Montana sent a woman to the national Congress, and already her fellow members hear her voice without perturbation. Mrs. Agnes Riddle, a member of the Colorado Senate, is a real contributor, I shall not scruple to say, to the intelligence and wisdom of that body. Mrs. Riddle, apart from being a stateswoman, manages a dairy to its utmost details, and during the session answers the roll-call after doing a pretty full day’s work on her farm. The schools of Colorado are admirably conducted by Mrs. C. C. Bradford, who has thrice been re-elected superintendent of public instruction. The deputy attorney-general of Colorado, Miss Clara Ruth Mozzor, sits at her desk as composedly as though she were not the first woman to gain this political and professional recognition in the Centennial Commonwealth. I am moved to ask whether we shall not find for the enfranchised woman who becomes active in public affairs some more felicitous and gallant term than politician--a word much soiled from long application to the corrupt male, and perhaps the Federation of Women’s Clubs will assist in this matter.
V
As the saying became trite, almost before news of our entrance into the world war had reached the nation’s farthest borders, that we should emerge from the conflict a new and a very different America, it becomes of interest to keep in mind the manner and the spirit in which we entered into the mighty struggle. It was not merely in the mind of people everywhere, on the 2d of April, 1917, that the nation was face to face with a contest that would tax its powers to the utmost, but that our internal affairs would be subjected to serious trial, and that parties and party policies would inevitably experience changes of greatest moment before another general election. When this is read the congressional campaign will be gathering headway; as I write, public attention is turning, rather impatiently it must be said, to the prospects of a campaign that is likely to pursue its course to the accompaniment of booming cannon overseas. How much the conduct of the war by the administration in power will figure in the pending contest is not yet apparent; but as the rapid succession of events following Mr. Wilson’s second inauguration have dimmed the issues of 1916, it may be well to summarize the respective attitudes of the two major parties two years ago to establish a point of orientation.
It was the chief Republican contention that the Democratic administration had failed to preserve the national honor and security in its dealings with Mexico and Germany. As political platforms are soon forgotten, it may be of interest to reproduce this paragraph of the Republican declaration of 1916:
The present administration has destroyed our influence abroad and humiliated us in our own eyes. The Republican party believes that a firm, consistent, and courageous foreign policy, always maintained by Republican Presidents in accordance with American traditions, is the best, as it is the only true way to preserve our peace and restore us to our rightful place among the nations. We believe in the pacific settlement of international disputes and favor the establishment of a world court for that purpose.
The concluding sentence is open to the criticism that it weakens what precedes it; but the Mexican plank, after denouncing “the indefensible methods of interference employed by this administration in the internal affairs of Mexico,” promises to “our citizens on and near our border, and to those in Mexico, wherever they may be found, adequate and absolute protection in their lives, liberty, and property.”
General Pershing had launched his punitive expedition on Mexican soil in March, and the Democratic platform adopted at St. Louis in June justifies this move; but it goes on to add:
Intervention, implying as it does military subjugation, is revolting to the people of the United States, notwithstanding the provocation to that course has been great, and should be resorted to, if at all, only as a last resort. The stubborn resistance of the President and his advisers to every demand and suggestion to enter upon it, is creditable alike to them and to the people in whose name he speaks.
As to Germany, this paragraph of the Democratic platform might almost have been written into President Wilson’s message to Congress of April 2, 1917, so clearly does it set forth the spirit in which America entered into the war:
We believe that every people has the right to choose the sovereignty under which it shall live; that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy from other nations the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and powerful nations expect and insist upon, and that the world has a right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in aggression or disregard of the rights of peoples and nations, and we believe that the time has come when it is the duty of the United States to join with the other nations of the world in any feasible association that will effectively serve these principles, to maintain inviolate the complete security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all nations.
The impression was very general in the East that the West was apathetic or indifferent both as to the irresponsible and hostile acts of Mexicans and the growing insolence of the Imperial German Government with reference to American rights on the seas. Any such assumption was unfair at the time, and has since been disproved by the promptness and vigor with which the West responded to the call to arms. But the West had no intention of being stampeded. A Democratic President whose intellectual processes and manner of speech were radically different from those at least of his immediate predecessors, was exercising a Lincoln-like patience in his efforts to keep the country out of war. From the time the Mexican situation became threatening one might meet anywhere in the West Republicans who thought that the honor and security of the nation were being trifled with; that the President’s course was inconsistent and vacillating; and even that we should have whipped Mexico into subjection and maintained an army on her soil until a stable government had been established. These views were expressed in many parts of the West by men of influence in Republican councils, and there were Democrats who held like opinions.
The Republicans were beset by two great difficulties when the national convention met. The first of these was to win back the Progressives who had broken with the party and contributed to the defeat of Mr. Taft in 1912; the second was the definition of a concrete policy touching Germany and Mexico that would appeal to the patriotic voter, without going the length of threatening war. The standpatters were in no humor to make concessions to the Progressives, who, in another part of Chicago, were unwilling to receive the olive-branch except on their own terms. Denied the joy of Mr. Roosevelt’s enlivening presence to create a high moment, the spectators were aware of his ability to add to the general gloom by his telegram suggesting Senator Lodge as a compromise candidate acceptable to the Progressives. The speculatively inclined may wonder what would have happened if in one of the dreary hours of waiting Colonel Roosevelt had walked upon the platform and addressed the convention. Again, those who have leisure for political solitaire may indulge in reflections as to whether Senator Lodge would not have appealed to the West quite as strongly as Mr. Hughes. The West, presumably, was not interested in Senator Lodge, though I timidly suggest that if a New Jersey candidate can be elected and re-elected with the aid of the West, Massachusetts need not so modestly hang in the background when a national convention orders the roll-call of the States for favorite sons.
There was little question at any time from the hour the convention opened that Mr. Hughes would be the nominee, and I believe it is a fair statement that he was the candidate the Democrats feared most. The country had formed a good opinion of him as a man of independence and courage, and, having strictly observed the silence enjoined by his position on the bench during the Republican family quarrel of four years earlier, he was looked upon as a candidate well fitted to rally the Progressives and lead a united party to victory.
The West waited and listened. While it had seemed a “safe play” for the Republicans to attack the Democratic administration for its course with Mexico and Germany, the presentation of the case to the people was attended with serious embarrassments. The obvious alternative of Mr. Wilson’s policy was war. The West was not at all anxious for war; it certainly did not want two wars. If war could be averted by negotiation the West was in a mood to be satisfied with that solution. Republican campaigners were aware of the danger of arraigning the administration for not going to war and contented themselves with attacks upon what they declared to be a shifty and wobbly policy. The West’s sense of fair play was, I think, roused by the vast amount of destructive criticism launched against the administration unaccompanied by any constructive programme. The President had grown in public respect and confidence; the West had seen and heard him since he became a national figure, and he did not look or talk like a man who would out of sheer contrariness trifle with the national security and honor. It may be said with truth that the average Western Democrat was not “keen” about Mr. Wilson when he first loomed as a presidential possibility. I heard a good deal of discussion by Western Democrats of Mr. Wilson’s availability in 1910-11, and he was not looked upon with favor. He was “different”; he didn’t invoke the Democratic gods in the old familiar phraseology, and he was suspected of entertaining narrow views as to “spoils,” such as caused so much heartache among the truly loyal in Mr. Cleveland’s two administrations.
The Democratic campaign slogan, “He has kept us out of war!” was not met with the definite challenge that he should have got us into war. Jingoism was well muffled. What passed for apathy was really a deep concern as to the outcome of our pressing international difficulties, an anxiety to weigh the points at issue soberly. Western managers constantly warned visiting orators to beware of “abusing the opposition,” as there were men and women of all political faiths in the audiences. Both sides were timid where the German vote was concerned, the Democrats alarmed lest the “strict accountability” attitude of the President toward the Imperial German Government would damage the party’s chances, and the Republicans embarrassed by the danger of openly appealing to the hyphenates when the Republican campaign turned upon an arraignment of the President for not dealing drastically enough with German encroachment upon American rights. In view of the mighty sweep of events since the election, all this seems tame and puerile, and reminds us that there is a vast amount of punk in politics.
In the West there are no indications that an effect of the war will be to awaken new radical movements or strengthen tendencies that were apparent before America sounded the call to arms. I have dwelt upon the sobriety with which the West approached the election of 1916 merely as an emphasis of this. We shall have once more a “soldier vote” to reckon with in our politics, and the effect of their participation in the world struggle upon the young men who have crossed the sea to fight for democracy is an interesting matter for speculation. One thing certain is that the war has dealt the greatest blow ever administered to American sectionalism. We were prone for years to consider our national life in a local spirit, and the political parties expended much energy in attempts to reconcile the demands and needs of one division of the States with those of another. The prolonged debate of the tariff as a partisan issue is a noteworthy instance of this. The farmer, the industrial laborer, the capitalist have all been the objects of special consideration. One argument had to be prepared for the cotton-grower in the South; another for the New England mill-hands who spun his product; still another for the mill-owner. The farm-hand and the mechanic in the neighboring manufacturing town had to be reached by different lines of reasoning. Our statesmanship, East and West, has been of the knot-hole variety--rarely has a man risen to the top of the fence for a broad view of the whole field. What will be acceptable to the South? What does the West want? We have had this sort of thing through many years, both as to national policies and as to candidates for the presidency, and its effect has been to prevent the development of sound national policies.
The Republican party has addressed itself energetically to the business of reorganization. The national committee met at St. Louis in February to choose a new chairman in place of Mr. William R. Willcox, and the contest for this important position was not without its significance. The standpatters yielded under pressure, and after a forty-eight-hour deadlock the election of Mr. Will H. Hays, of Indiana, assured a hospitable open-door policy toward all prodigals. In 1916 Mr. Hays, as chairman of the Republican State committee, carried Indiana against heavy odds and established himself as one of the ablest political managers the West has known. As the country is likely to hear a good deal of him in the next two years, I may note that he is a man of education, high-minded, resourceful, endowed with prodigious energy and trained and tested executive ability. A lawyer in a town of five thousand people, he served his political apprenticeship in all capacities from precinct committeeman to the State chairmanship. Mr. Hays organized and was the first chairman of the Indiana State Council of Defense, and made it a thoroughly effective instrument for the co-ordination of the State’s war resources and the diffusion of an ardent patriotism. Indeed the methods of the Indiana Council were so admirable that they were adopted by several other States. It is in the blood of all Hoosiers to suspect partisan motives where none exists, but it is to Mr. Hays’s credit that he directed Indiana’s war work, until he resigned to accept the national chairmanship, with the support and to the satisfaction of every loyal citizen without respect to party. Mr. Hays is essentially a Westerner, with the original Wabash tang; and his humor and a knack of coining memorable phrases are not the least important items of his equipment for politics. He is frank and outspoken, with no affectations of mystery, and as his methods are conciliatory and assimilative the chances are excellent for a Republican rejuvenation.
The burden of prosecuting the war to a conclusive peace that shall realize the American aims repeatedly set forth by President Wilson is upon the Democratic administration. The West awaits with the same seriousness with which it pondered the problems of 1916 the definition of new issues touching vitally our social, industrial, and financial affairs, and our relations with other nations, that will press for attention the instant the last shot is fired. In the mid-summer of 1918 only the most venturesome political prophets are predicting either the issues or the leaders of 1920. Events which it is impossible to forecast will create issues and possibly lift up new leaders not now prominent in national politics. A successful conclusion of the war before the national conventions meet two years hence would give President Wilson and his party an enormous prestige. On the other hand, if the war should be prolonged we shall witness inevitably the development of a sentiment for change based upon public anxiety to hasten the day of peace. These things are on the knees of the gods.
In both parties there is to-day a melancholy deficiency of presidential timber. It cannot be denied that Republican hopes, very generally, are centred in Mr. Roosevelt; this is clearly apparent throughout the West. In the Democratic State convention held at Indianapolis, June 18, tumultuous enthusiasm was awakened by the chairman, former Governor Samuel M. Ralston, who boldly declared for Wilson in 1920--the first utterance of the kind before any body of like representative character. However, the immediate business of the nation is to win the war, and there is evident in the West no disposition to suffer this predominating issue to be obscured by partisanship. Indeed since America took up arms nothing has been more marked in the Western States than the sinking of partisanship in a whole-hearted support of the government and a generous response to all the demands of the war. In meetings called in aid of war causes Democrats and Republicans have vied with each other in protestations of loyalty to the government. I know of no exception to the rule that every request from Washington has been met splendidly by Republican State governors. Indeed, there has been a lively rivalry among Middle Western States to exceed the prescribed quotas of dollars and men.
Already an effect of the war has been a closer knitting together of States and sections, a contemplation of wider horizons. It is inevitable that we shall be brought, East and West, North and South, to the realization of a new national consciousness that has long been the imperative need of our politics. And in all the impending changes, readjustments, and conciliations the country may look for hearty co-operation to a West grown amazingly conservative and capable of astonishing manifestations of independence.