Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899

When a colony has hived off from the parent state at a time of religious excitement, and especially when it has religion for its raison d'être, it starts fully equipped on lines of its own, the earlier naturalistic stages being dropped. English theology and Puritan religion emigrated to North America in the seventeenth century, and there for two centuries they for the most part remained. Ever since, in New England and the States of the middle belt, religion has played the same high part as it did in old England under Oliver. There has, therefore, been a theological development in the United States to which, till fifty years ago, there was no antecedent parallel in the mother country. While it has produced no theologian or pulpit orator of the first rank – no Calvin, but only Jonathan Edwards; no Bossuet or Chalmers, but only Channing and Beecher – its theological literature compares favorably with that of England during the same period, and its preachers are acknowledged to be the best in Christendom. States and colonies that have grown up more normally get at length on the same lines, and as they put on civilization the tendency is to adopt ever more of the dogmatic system long inseparable from it. By a well-understood sociological law it generates its contradictory and corrective, and there springs up a higher type of denial than secularism – what Huxley felicitously named Agnosticism – the position of those who know nothing about the matters which theological dogma defines, not the position of those who say that nothing can be known. As the Evangelical develops into the High Churchman and he into the Catholic, the Secularist refines into the Agnostic and rarefies into the Unknowabilist.

The literature of colonies is at first theological, as the literature of all countries is at first hieratic; the priest alone can write. But it is long before the stage of original production is reached, and books have to be imported before they can be written. The daughter must go to school with the mother, who supplies her with hornbooks. The continuity of the spiritual germ-plasm is insured by the transmission of books. Rome was thus initiated by Greece in every theoretical branch of knowledge. Rome thus educated early Europe. Chests of manuscripts from Thessalonica, Byzantium, and Crete were the precursors of the Renaissance. Books brought by Benedict to England formed the first English library. So is it long with all new countries. To this day the book circulation of the United States is largely English; in contemporary colonies it is overwhelmingly English, almost wholly Spanish, exclusively French or Dutch. The second stage also repeats the literary history of the mother countries. Colonial literature is a prolongation of the parental literature and is at first commentative and imitative of that. In a school at Canterbury founded by two foreign monks English written literature took its birth. The literature of mediæval Europe was a continuation of Roman literature. This stage may last long. Seventy or eighty years after the Declaration of Independence the literature of New England was still English literature of a subtler strain – perhaps lacking the strength of the old home-brew, but with a finer flavor. Naturally, in far younger Australia even popular poetry is still imitative – the hand is that of Gordon or of Kendall, but the voice is Swinburne's. The beginnings of a truly national literature are humble. They are never scholastic, but always popular. As chap-books, ballads, and songs were the sources of the æsthetic literature of modern Europe, the beginnings of general literature in the United States have been traced to the old almanacs which, besides medical recipes and advice to the farmer, contained some of the best productions of American authors. It is further evidence of the popular origin of native literature that some of its early specimens are works of humor. The most distinctive work of early Canadian and American authors is humorous, from Sam Slick to – ; but it would be rash to say who is the last avatar of the genius of humor. If an alien may say so without offense, Walt Whitman's poems, with their profound intuitions and artless metre, seem to be the start of a new æsthetic, and recall ancient Beowulf. Australian literature, after a much shorter apprenticeship, has lately, in both fiction and verse, again of a popular character, made a new departure that is instinct with life and grace and full of promise.

Literature and art have no independent value, but are merely the phonographic record of mental states, and would practically cease to exist (as they did during the middle ages) if these disappeared. The grand achievement of new, as of old, countries is man-making, and every colony creates a new variety. The chief agent is natural selection, of which the seamy side appears in vicissitudes of fortune. Here again the law prevails. These recapitulate those vicissitudes in early European societies which make picturesque the pages of Gregory of Tours. There are the same sudden rises, giddy prosperities, and inevitable falls. In the simple communities of ancient Greece the distance between antecedent and consequent was short, and the course of causation plain. Hence in myth and legend, in early historians like Herodotus, early poets like Pindar, early dramatists like Æschylus, we find a deep sense of the fateful working of the laws of life. The history of colonies is a sermon on the same text. Goodness is speedily rewarded; retribution no longer limps claudo pede, like Vulcan, but flies like Mercury with winged feet. In Europe a high-handed wrongdoer like Napoleon may pursue his career unchecked for fifteen years, or a high-handed rightdoer like Bismarck for five-and-twenty years; a would-be colonial Bismarck or Napoleon is commonly laid by the heels in the short duration of a colonial parliament. The vision of providential government, or the reign of law, in old countries is hard, because its course is long and intricate; in a colony it is so comparatively simple that all may understand it and find it (as Carlyle found it) "worthy of horror and worship." From witnessing the ending of a world Augustine constructed a theodicy, and so justified the ways of God to man. We may discover in the beginnings of a world materials for a cosmodicy which shall exhibit the self-operating justice inherent in the laws of the universe.

POLITICS AS A FORM OF CIVIL WAR

By FRANKLIN SMITH

Why is it that, in spite of exhortation and execration, the disinclination of people in all the great democracies of the world to take part in politics is becoming greater and greater? Why is it that persons of fine character, scholarly tastes, and noble aims, in particular, seek in other ways than association and co-operation with politicians to better the lot of their fellows? Why is it, finally, that with the enormous extension of political rights and privileges during the past fifty years, there has occurred a social, political, and industrial degeneration that fills with alarm the thoughtful minds of all countries? Aside from the demoralization due to the destructive wars fought since the Crimean, the answer to these questions is to be found in the fact that at bottom politics is a form of civil war, that politicians are a species of condottieri, and that to both may be traced all the ethics and evils of a state of chronic war itself. In the light of this truth, never so glaring as at present in the United States, the peril to civilization is divested of mystery; it is the peril that always flows from anarchy, and the refusal of enlightened men to-day to engage in politics is as natural as the refusal of enlightened men in other days to become brigands.

The analogy between war and politics is not new. The very language in common use implies it. When people speak of "leaders," "rank and file," "party loyalty," "campaigns," "spoils of victory," etc., which figure so conspicuously and incessantly in political discussion, there is only a fit appropriation of the militant terms invented by one set of fighters to describe with vividness and precision the conduct of another set. What is new about the matter is the failure of thoughtful persons to perceive and to act upon their perception that in politics, as in war, vast economic, social, and political evils are involved. To be sure, lives are not often sacrificed, as in a battle, nor property destroyed, as in a siege or an invasion. But even here the analogy is not imperfect. Political riots have occurred that have brought out as completely as any struggle over a redoubt or barricade the savage traits of human nature. People were maimed and killed, and houses wrecked and burned. Especially was that the case in this country during the antislavery struggle and the period of reconstruction. Even in these days of more calm, political contests as fatal as the Ross-Shea émeute in Troy are reported from time to time. Owing, however, to the advance in civilization since the sack of Antwerp and the siege of Saragossa, the devastation wrought by political warfare has assumed forms less deplorable. But in the long run they will be found to be just as fatal to everything that constitutes civilization, and just as productive of everything that constitutes barbarism. "Lawless ruffianism," says Carl Schurz, pointing out in his Life of Henry Clay the demoralizing effects of the fierce political struggles during Jackson's administrations, "has perhaps never been so rampant in this country as in those days. 'Many of the people of the United States are out of joint,' wrote Niles in August, 1835. 'A spirit of riot and a disposition to "take the law in their own hand" prevails in every quarter.' Mobs, riots, burnings, lynchings, shootings, tarrings, duels, and all sorts of violent excesses, perpetrated by all sorts of persons upon all sorts of occasions, seemed to be the order of the day… Alarmingly great was the number of people who appeared to believe that they had the right to put down by force and violence all who displeased them by act or speech or belief in politics, or religion, or business, or in social life." It is only familiarity with such fruits of violent political activity, only a vision impaired by preconceived notions of the nature of politics, that blinds the public to their existence.

To see why politics must be regarded as a form of civil war rather than as a method of business, as a system of spoliation rather than as a science to be studied in the public schools,1 it is but needful to grasp the fundamental purpose of government as generally understood. It is not too much to say that nothing in sociology is regarded as more indicative of an unsound mind or of a mean and selfish disposition than the conception of government as a power designed to prevent aggression at home and abroad. Such a conception has been contemptuously called "the police conception." "Who would ever fight or die for a policeman?" cried an opponent of it, trying to reduce an adversary to ignominious silence. It was not sufficient to reply with the counter question, "Who would not die for justice?" and thus expose the fallacy of the crushing interrogation. "No one," came the retort, "could care for a country that only protected him against swindlers, robbers, and murderers. To merit his allegiance and to fire his devotion, she must do more than that; she must help to make his life easier, pleasanter, and nobler." Accordingly, the Government undertakes for him a thousand duties that it has no business with. It builds schools and asylums for him; it protects him against disease, and, if needful, furnishes him with physicians and medicines; it sees that he has good beef and pork, pure milk, and sound fruit; it refuses to permit him to drink what he pleases, though it be only the cheaper grades of tea, nor to eat chemical substitutes for butter and cheese, except they bear authorized marks; it transports his mails, supplies him with garden seeds, instructs him in the care of fowls, cattle, and horses, shows him how to build roads, and tells him what the weather will be; it insures him not only against incompetent plumbers, barbers, undertakers, horseshoers, accountants, and physicians, but also against the competition of the pauper labor of foreign countries; it creates innumerable offices and commissions to look after the management of his affairs, particularly to stand between him and the "rapacity" of the corporations organized to supply the necessaries of life at the lowest cost; it builds fleets of cruisers and vast coast fortifications to frighten away enemies that never think of assailing him, and to inspire them with the same respect for "the flag" that he is supposed to feel. Indeed, there is hardly a thing, except simple justice, cheap and speedy, that it does not provide to fill him with a love of his country, and to make him ready to immolate himself upon her altars.

But I can not repeat with too much emphasis that every expenditure beyond that required to maintain order and to enforce justice, and every limitation of freedom beyond that needful to preserve equal freedom, is an aggression. In no wise except in method does it differ from the aggressions of war. In war the property of an enemy is taken or destroyed without his consent. In case of his capture his conduct is shaped in disregard of his wishes. The seizure of a citizen's property in the form of taxes for a purpose that he does not approve, and the regulation of any part of his conduct not violative of the rights of his neighbors, are precisely the same. If he is forbidden to carry the mails and thus earn a living, his freedom is restricted. If he can patronize no letter carrier but the Government, to which he must pay a certain rate, no matter how excessive, he has to a degree become a slave. The same is true if he can not employ whomever he pleases to cut his hair, or to fix his plumbing, or to prescribe for his health. Still truer is it if he is obliged to contribute to a system of public education which he condemns, or to public charities which he knows to be schools of pauperism, or to any institution or enterprise that voluntary effort does not sustain. In whatever way the Government may pounce upon him to force him to work for some one besides himself and to square his conduct with notions not his own, he is still a victim of aggression, and the aggression is none the less real and demoralizing because it is not committed amid the roar of cannon and the groans of the dying.

To what extent the American people have become victims of this kind of aggression can not be determined with precision. Still, an idea may be had from the volume of laws enacted at every legislative session, and the amount of money appropriated to enforce them. A commonplace little appreciated is that every one of them, no matter what its ostensible object, either restricts or contributes to individual freedom. The examination of any statute-book will soon make painfully apparent the melancholy fact that the protection of individual freedom figures to the smallest extent in the considerations of the wise and benevolent legislator. Of the eight hundred enactments of the Legislature of the State of New York in 1897, for example, I could find only fifty-eight that had this supreme object in view. If we apply the same ratio to the work of all the legislatures of the country, and, allowing for biennial sessions, make it cover a period of two years – namely, 1896 and 1897 – the astonishing result will be that, of the 14,718 laws passed, all but 1,030 aim, not to the liberation but to the enslavement of the individual. But to this restrictive legislation must be added the thousands of acts and ordinances of town, city, and county legislatures that are more destructive of freedom even than the State and Federal legislation. If not more numerous, they are certainly more minute, meddlesome, and exasperating.

As to the amount of plunder passing through the hands of the modern condottieri, that is susceptible of an estimate much more accurate. If we take the expenditures of all the governments of the United States, Federal, State, municipal, county, and town, for a similar period of two years, they reach the enormous total of two billion dollars, equal to more than two thirds of the national debt at the close of the civil war.2 Of this sum only about one hundred and twenty million dollars, or six per cent, are devoted to the legitimate functions of government – namely, the maintenance of police and courts – and one hundred and forty million dollars to the support of the military establishment.3 All the rest is expenditure that should no more be intrusted to the Government – that is, subject to the application of political instead of business methods – than the expenditure of a household, or a farm, or a cotton mill, or an iron foundry. Even if it were a legitimate expenditure of the Government, it could not be collected nor expended without injustice. Tax laws have never been and never will be framed that will not permit some one to escape his share of the burdens of the community; and the heavier those burdens are, as they are constantly becoming to an alarming degree, the more desperate will be the effort to shirk them – the more lightly will they rest upon the dishonest and unworthy, and the more heavily upon the honest and worthy. Moreover, it has never been possible, and it never will be possible, to expend money by political methods without either waste or fraud, and most usually without both.

Such a volume of legislation and taxation permits of the easy detection of the vital difference between the theory and practice of politics. According to the text-books and professors, politics is the science of government. In countries like the United States, where popular institutions prevail, the purpose of its study is the discovery and the application of the methods that shall enable all citizens, rich and poor, to share alike in the inestimable privilege of saying what laws they shall have, and bear in proportion to their means the burdens it entails. Such a privilege is supposed to confer innumerable benefits. Every one is assured of scrupulous justice. He is made to feel profound gratitude for his happy deliverance from the odious tyranny and discrimination of a monarchy or an aristocracy. The participation of everybody in the important and beneficent work of government possesses a rare educational value. It leads the ignorant and indifferent to take a deep interest in public questions, and to attempt, as their strength and ability allow, the promotion of the welfare of their beloved country. Thus they escape the deplorable fate of burial in the sordid and selfish pursuit of their own affairs, and the consequent dwarfing of their minds and emotions. Rising to broader views of life and duty, they become patriots, statesmen, and philanthropists.

Enchanting as this picture is, one that can be found in the speeches of every demagogue, male and female, as well as in the works of every political philosopher of the orthodox faith, it has no sanction in the practice of politics. As long as the greater part of legislation and taxation has nothing whatever to do with government, properly speaking, politics can have no kinship with any pursuit held in esteem by men truly civilized. What it consists of may be reduced to a desperate and disgraceful struggle between powerful organizations, sometimes united, like the Italian condottieri and the Spanish brigands, in the form of "rings," to get control of the annual collection and distribution of one billion dollars, and to reap the benefits that grow out of the concession of privileges. The legislation placing this vast power in the hands of the successful combatants is only an incident of their work. It simply enables them under the form of law to seize the taxpayer, bind him like another Gulliver with rules and regulations, and to take from him whatever they please to promote their political ambition and private interests. From this point of view it is easy to see that politics has no more kinship with science or justice than pillage. Nor is it likely to make people more patriotic, high-minded, and benevolent than the rapacity of Robin Hood or Fra Diavolo.

However startling or repugnant may be this view, it is the only one that furnishes an adequate explanation of the practice of government as carried on in every democratic country in the world. The work of private business and philanthropy, the work in which modern democracies have come to be chiefly engaged, is not in itself productive of the ethics and evils of war. Contrary to the common belief, industrial competition, which is conducted by voluntary co-operation, tends to the supremacy of excellence, moral and material. In societies where civilization has made headway, a merchant or manufacturer does not seek to crush rivals by misrepresenting them or assailing them in other ways. His natural and constant aim is to have his goods so cheap and excellent that the public will patronize him rather than them. To be sure, the ethics of war often prevail in industrialism. They are not, however, one of its products; they are the fruits of militant ages and activities. But in political competition, which is coercive, the policy pursued is precisely the reverse. Not by proof of moral and material excellence does the politician establish his worth. Not by the superiority of his services or by his fidelity to obligations does he gain the esteem and patronage of the public. It is by the infliction of injury upon his rivals. He misrepresents them; he deceives them; he assails them in every way within his reach. When he triumphs over them he uses his power, not primarily for the benefit of the people whom he is supposed to serve, but to maintain his supremacy in order to pillage them. "Those who make war," says Machiavelli, whose famous book is a vade mecum for a modern politician as well as for an unscrupulous and a tyrannical prince, "have always and very naturally designed to enrich themselves and impoverish the enemy. Neither is victory sought nor conquest desirable except to strengthen themselves and weaken the enemy."

In the light of this truth the organization of powerful political parties becomes natural and inevitable. It is just as natural and inevitable that the more numerous the duties intrusted to the State – that is, the greater the spoil to be fought for in caucus and convention and on the floors of legislatures – the more powerful, dangerous, and demoralizing they are certain to be. Were these duties confined to the maintenance of order and the enforcement of justice, it would be an easy matter for the busiest citizen to give them the attention they required. So simple would they be that he could understand them, and so important that he would insist upon their proper performance. But when they become vast and complex, including such special and difficult work as the education of children; the care of idiots, lunatics, and epileptics; the supervision of the liquor traffic, the insurance business, and railroad transportation, and the regulation of the amount of currency needed in an industrial community, it is beyond the powers of any man, however able, to understand them all, and, no matter how much time he may have, to look after them as he ought. When to these duties are added the management of agricultural stations; the inspection of all kinds of food; the extirpation of injurious insects, noxious weeds, and contagious diseases; the licensing of various trades and professions; the suppression of quacks, fortune-tellers, and gamblers; the production and sale of sterilized milk, and the multitude of other duties now intrusted to the Government, it is no wonder that he finds himself obliged to neglect public questions and to devote himself more closely to his own affairs in order to meet the ever-increasing burdens of taxation. Neither is it any wonder that there springs up a class of men to look after the duties he neglects, and to make such work a means of subsistence. The very law of evolution requires such a differentiation of social functions and organs. The politician is not, therefore, the product of his own love of spoliation solely, but of the necessities of a vicious extension of the duties of the State. There is nothing more abnormal or reprehensible about his existence under the present régime than there is about the physician or lawyer where disease and contention prevail. As long as the conditions are maintained that created him, so long will he ply his profession. When they are abolished he will be abolished. No number of citizens' unions, or nonpartisan movements, or other devices of hopeful but misguided reformers to abolish him, can modify or reverse this immutable decree of social science.