LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright Xo. ShelL___d-KJl' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ' v , &&rt REVOLUTION? JOHN S/ HITTELL Only one hundred copies of this edition are printed, all for gratuitous distribution. SAN FRANCISCO; 1900. 73392 * t-S *_J r^e r-w / 9 1900 Cc?vr!f?ht entry ] SECOND COPY. I gbiivec^d ta 1 GwiiW DIVISION, UfflLiiuafitt- *< .^ Copyright, 1900, by JOHN S. HITTELL. PREFACE. To explain the chief defects of the government of the United States and to propose the best rem- edy for them, — these are the two main purposes of this book. Our political evils have long been known to pub- lic opinion at home and abroad and most of them have often been mentioned in print, but they have never been explained in a connected and compre- hensive manner so as to give a true idea of their magnitude and dangerous character; and because they have not been understood, they have been treated by American authors, journalists and offi- cials generally, as relatively unimportant, and not inconsistent with the baseless claim that our na- tional constitution is the best in the world in se- curing the welfare of the multitude. I here present the compilation and explanation which others have neglected to make. By quota- tions from a multitude of high and undisputed authorities, I prove that our government is a dis- grace to us a people. I show that no other en- (3) 4 PREFACE. lightened nation fails, so lamentably, to perform its duties of defining and protecting the rights of its citizens, in matters relating to person and property. I collect many predictions by wise and learned men that we are rapidly advancing toward bankruptcy and national collapse. Many intelligent Americans, after carefully considering the facts here presented, will say, "We must re- form these evils without delay." A list of the books, from which citations are made, is given in the last chapter. JOHN S. HITTELL. Pioneer Hall, San Francisco, September 9th, 1900. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY. Section. Page. 1. Three Main Evils 11 2. Federal Weakness 11 3. Federal Treason 17 4. Nullification 19 5. Cherokee Expulsion 23 6. Double Citizenship 25 7. Unprotected Eights 26 8. Suffrage Denied 27 9. Strike-Rebellions 30 10. Missouri-Pacific 31 11. Pittsburg 31 12. Homestead 32 13. Pullman 33 14. Wardner. 36 15. Pana 37 16. Leadville 39 17. St. Louis 39 G CONTENTS. Section. Page. 18. Griffin 40 19. Lynch Law 41 20. Koszta 44 21. Italians Mobbed «... 45 22. Vigilance 47 23. Federalism Reviewed 50 CHAPTER II. CONFLICT OF DEPARTMENTS, Section. Page. 24. Checks 56 25. Divided Responsibility 59 26. The Committee System 62 27. Bagehot and Maine 61 28. Schuyler 67 29. Log-Roiling 68 30. Lobby 69 31. Private Bills 71 32. Slip-Shod Laws 74 33. Discordant Laws 78 34. Federal Senate 79 35. Finances 83 36. Presidential Impeachment 89 37. Nullifying Courts 90 38. Military Discord 90 39. Conflict Review 93 CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER III. THE SPOILS. Section. Page. 40. The Party 94 41. The Machine 100 42. The Boss 102 43. The Cinch 105 44. The Organ 109 45. The Club 110 46. The Convention Ill 47. Internal Improvements 115 48. Demagogism 117 49. Rotation 120 50. Office Begging 122 51. Inexperience 128 52. Corruption 131 53. Election Frauds 134 54. Broderick 135 55. Clark 137 56. War Frauds 138 57. Simon Cameron 141 58. Gideon Wells 143 59. Belknap. 146 60. Sanborn 147 61. New York Customs 148 8 CONTENTS. Section. Page. 62. Senatorial Courtesy 152 63. Spoils Legislation 155 64. Judicial Abuses 155 65. Cities 158 66. A. D. White 161 67. Tweed 163 68. San Francisco 166 69. Cincinnati 168 70. Scale of Infamy 170 71. Unfit Presidents 170 72. Presidential Candidates 175 73. Purity Promises 177^ 74. Decline 181 CHAPTER IV. PERIL. Section. Page. 75. Warnings 183 76. Kent and Webster 184 77. James Bryce 185 78. Harper 186 79. Hoist ...* 186 80. Mill 188 81. Lecky 190 CONTENTS. 9 Section. Page. 82. Burnett.. 191 83. McCracken 192 84. Bradford 192 85. Hyslop 193 86. Rush 194 87. Wright 195 88. Various Croakings 196 89. Tropical Colonies 200 90. Negro Demoralization 201 91. Parallel Predictions 202 CHAPTER V. REFORM. Section. Page. 92. Remedies 203 93. My Plan 205 94. New Constitution 207 95. Remarks 211 96. Our Present Constitution 218 97. British Constitution 223 98. Comparisons,. 226 99. Other Plans 228 100. Suffrage Restriction 229 101. Burnett's Plan 231 10 CONTENTS, Section. Page. 102. Stickney's Plan 232 103. Moffett's Plan 234 104. Hyslop's Plan 234 105. Ford's Plan 235 106. Seaman's Plan 235 107. Despair 236 108. Conclusion 238 Sectio 109. CHAPTEE VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY, n. List of Books Page. 241 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? CHAPTER I. DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY. Section 1. Three Main Evils, — In several im- portant points, the government of the United States is more defective than that of any other enlightened country and, as a whole, it is inferior to many others. It is so bad that it is not only disgraceful but highly dangerous to the American people, as the judicious reader will admit after reading a truthful statement of the facts, to be submitted to him in this book. Its main defects are three; first, Divided Sov- ereignty, whereby many of the highest political powers, that should belong to a national govern- ment, are improperly distributed among forty- five provinces or so-called states; second, Strife between Branches, because of the lack of a proper subordination and responsibility in official au- thority; and third, the Spoils System which fills a large proportion of the governmental offices with dishonest or incompetent men. Sec. 2. Federal Weakness. — The Constitution of the United States, as Madison said in the Fed- (li) 12 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? eralist, when pleading for its adoption, is a federal not a national document. It does not apply the word national or sovereign, to any of its offices. While combining to employ federal officials to manage certain foreign and interstate affairs of subordinate importance, the states retain exclu- sive control over suffrage, education, marriage, inheritance, land titles, contracts, corporations and crime, and exclusive power to protect the most precious rights of person and property con- nected with these branches of law. A divided sovereignty implies an insecure allegiance, a questionable patriotism, and an unsatisfactory protection of the citizen. The constitution allows Congress to provide a uniform method of nat- uralizing aliens, but not to define the privileges of the citizenship thus created. It declares that "the citizens of each state shall 5 be entitled to all the privileges of citizens in the several states," as if the only citizenship were that of the state, but this promise is not supported by any proper sanction or method of enforcement and therefore never has been enforced. Before 1865, the slave states generally refused to recognize the citizen- ship and equal civil and political rights of the colored citizens of New England and North Caro- lina which latter state gave citizenship and suf- frage to colored freemen owning a certain amount of property. The central government made no attempt to protect the rights of these citizens; by REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 13 its inaction, it confessed its impotence and it con- tinues the same conduct now. The Federal Constitution declares that it shall be "the supreme law of the land" and orders that the members of Congress, "and of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers both of the United States and the several states shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution." The federal power is "supreme" in foreign and interstate relations; but as these are not one-twentieth part in number and importance of the aggregate relations of life, the supremacy is limited to a narrow range. As to the oath of allegiance to the Union, that was long treated as a nullity. Vermont was admitted in 1793 and Kentucky in 1799 with constitutions which prescribed the precise form of the oath to be taken by their officials and the state constitu- tion was mentioned as the only sovereignty to which they were bound. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Georgia and Maryland long pre- served the same oath, thus refusing to recognize the federal supremacy. In their constitutions for many years before the civil war, two of the states (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) declared that they were "free, sovereign and independent"; two others (Maine and Florida) that they were "free and independ- ent" ; Ehode Island that its constitution was "the supreme law of the land" ; and Maryland asserted 14 REFORM OR REVOLUTI02>TV that "the people of this state ought to have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof." All the state constitutions indicate, by their form, that they emanate from a power which has most of the at- tributes of sovereignty; everything, that they do not prohibit, may be done by the officials; where- as the federal government may do only the acts for which power is given. One is a limitation and the other is a grant of power; one defines a government, the other creates an agency. The official name, given to the federation in the constitution, — "the United States of America" — ■ is objectionable on linguistic grounds. It is not good English. States may unite, but when they do, they become one state. By the act of union, they cease to be plural and become singular. The word state, (like its equivalents slaat, etat, stato, estado and so forth in other modern lan- guages) means an independent nation, a separate people under a completely sovereign political organization. Some persons have said that "The United States" should be used as a singular noun as in the phrase "the United States is a nation"; but the framers of the constitution did not think so; they said "treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them and adhering to their enemies." Our federal name is objectionable on geo- graphical as well as on linguistic grounds. The REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 15 states which form the Union are not the states "of America" but only of part of North America. When our country acquires a proper nationality, it should have a suitable name, a name in the singular number, a single word, conveying the idea of complete sovereignty as does France or Italy or Spain. In 1798 the legislature of Kentucky adopted a series of resolutions drafted by Jefferson, de- claring that the Union is a compact to which "each state acceded as a state," and that, "as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infractions, as of the mode of redress.*' The plain meaning of this language is that every state had a constitu- tional right to annul federal laws or to withdraw from the Union at any time without the consent of its associates. In the same year the legislature of Virginia adopted a series of similar resolutions drafted by Madison, asserting that "a spirit has been manifested by the federal government to en- large its power by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them . . . so as to consolidate the states by degrees into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable result of which would be to transform the present republican system of the United States into an absolute or at best a mixed monarchy." The Congressional caucus of the Anti-federal party 16 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? (which elected Jefferson to the presidency) in its declaration of principles accused the Federalists of plotting to convert the presidency and the fed- eral senatorships into hereditary offices. The elections of Jefferson in 1800 and 1804 and of Madison in 1808 and 1812 (as representatives of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions) and of Pierce in 1852 and of Buchanan in 1856, on plat- forms explicitly approving those resolutions, were partisan declarations that the right of secession was part of the law of the land. By asserting that each state has full authority to decide whether the compact has been broken and to adopt its own remedy, these "Kentucky and Virginia resolutions," as they are called, plainly mean that every state may either prohibit the enforcement, within its limits, of any federal law which it dislikes or may secede without break- ing its promise to the other states. This is the interpretation which was given, by many lawyers, to these resolutions when they were first pub- lished; and it will remain sound so long as the phrases about infraction and redress have any obvious signification. Jefferson so understood them, and with his knowledge and approval, about the time when the legislature of Virginia, under his influence, declared its hostility to the idea of an indissoluble Union, it provided for the construction of an armory and the purchase of arms, to be used against the national forces, in REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 17 case of hostilities caused by a defiance of the fed- eral authority. (Hoist. 1. 178). Sec. 3. Federal Treason. — Those portions of the federal constitution relating to military affairs are disgracefully weak. Nothing forbids the states to maintain their own armies and navies, under their own officers, their own flags, their own uniforms, their own commissions and their own oaths of allegiance; nothing in the law prevents them from building their own /forts and fleets, or laying in unlimited supplies or acting in concert to prepare for resisting the federal government. Until a state has given its own permission, the President has no control over its militia, and the refusal of a Governor to call them out when or- dered or requested by the President is not a pun- ishable offense. Under the influence of mean state jealousy, the federal constitution restricts treason to the levy- ing of war against the Union. So long as there is no war there is no treason. "Without violating the federal constitution state officials may urge the most treasonable ideas and most hostile plans in speech or print, may denounce the President as a usurper, may assert that some defeated can- didate is the true head of the nation, may make it a criminal offense to furnish any necessary of life to a federal officer, may adopt statutes that will effectually prevent the punishment of those who murder federal officials, and may adopt com- 18 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? nion plans for enlisting large armies, purchasing numerous ships of war, giving the command of their troops and vessels to the same general and the same admiral, and exacting oaths of alle- giance to the state exclusively. And all this can be done without committing treason under the Federal Constitution. The British Government has a better idea of its dignity and duty. It provides that the speech of citizens hostile to the nation shall be punished as treason. Two hundred years ago the Briton who said in writing or print that the Pretender was the lawful King, was hanged. The statute was enforced and the Jacobites treated it with punc- tilious civility. We need some legislation, based on the same principle, in these United States. The assertion has been made frequently that there will never be another attempt at secession in this country, but such prophecies are cheap and worthless. Under the present political system, no confidence can be placed in the plat- form promises of the American people. They do not know today what they will do tomorrow. By electing Jefferson and Madison, they accepted the doctrines of nullification and secession, and yet they applauded Jackson when he threatened to hang Calhoun. After the lapse of some years, they again sanctioned those same principles of nullification and secession by electing Pierce and again by electing Buchanan and while these REFORM OR REVOLUTION"? 19 promises to let the South go in peace were yet fresh in their mouths, they overwhelmed the Secessionists with blood and fire of the Civil War. The Democratic leaders of the North were ready to make pretenses that would catch votes, but they could not control their followers when the Union was in danger of dissolution. Today the people are ardently attached to the Union; tomorrow one-third or two-fifths of them may be its bitter enemies. If there should be an- other rebellion, its managers will profit by the mistakes of the last one. They will not be in so much haste to rush into hostilities, but will fortify their territory, arm and drill their people, buy ships, educate their officers, and abstain from the commission of Federal treason until they are ready to strike the decisive blow with success. They will rely for success on themselves; not on their allies in other states. Sec. 4. Nullification. — The nation was dishon- ored by its failure to properly punish the gross defiance and insult given to it by the Nullification Ordinance of South Carolina, adopted November 24th, 1832, by a vote of one hundred and thirty- six ayes to twenty-six noes, in the State conven- tion convened for the special purpose of taking such action. This ordinance declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, and all contracts made to secure the payment of duties under them, and all judicial proceedings to affirm their val- 20 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? idity, should be "held utterly null and void." The ordinance provided further that no lawsuit involv- ing the validity of this ordinance or of any act of the legislature for its enforcement should be ap- pealed to the federal Supreme Court, and any per- son attempting to take such an appeal should be punished for contempt of the state court. It was provided further that every officer of the state should take an oath to obey and execute this ordi- nance. Finally the Convention declared that "we the people of South Carolina/' would not "submit to the application of force, on the part of the fed- eral government, to reduce this state to obe- dience," but would "consider the passage by Con- gress of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the state of South Carolina" as inconsistent with the longer contin- uance of South Carolina in the Union and would "forthwith proceed to organize a separate gov- ernment." President Jackson on December 10th 1832 is- sued a proclamation explaining the pretensions of South Carolina and warning the people of that state that he would enforce the laws. After hav- ing stated the facts and constitutional principles involved he said "This then is the position in which we stand. A small majority of the citizens of one State in the Union have elected delegates to a State convention; that Convention has or- dained that all the revenue laws of the United REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 21 States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a member of the Union. The Governor of that State has recommended to the legislature the raising of an army to carry the secession into effect, and that he may be empowered to give clearances to vessels in the name of the State. No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended; and it is the intent of this instru- ment to proclaim, not only that the duty imposed on me by the Constitution 'to see that the laws be faithfully executed/ shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of such others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and entrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and disorganizing ordinance of the convention; to exhort those who have refused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the constitution and laws of their country; and to point out to all the perilous situation into which the good people of the State have been led, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support. . . . "Fellow citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion, — the names of those once respected, by whom it was uttered, 22 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? the array of military force to support it, denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and, as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposi- tion of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our Government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confi- dence in the justness of the legal and constitu- tional opinion of my duties, which has been ex- pressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your un- divided support in my determination to execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all constitu- tional means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States." After all this brave talk, Congress adopted and Jackson signed a compromise bill reducing the import duties which 'provoked the defiance of South Carolina. She was the real victor in this REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 23 controversy, and thus and otherwise was en- couraged to secede thirty years later. Sec. 5. Cherokee Expulsion. — The federal govern- ment was defeated humiliated and dishonored by the state of Georgia in a controversy about the Cherokee Indians between the years 1825 and 1830. Under all the administrations, Congress and the President recognized the larger Indian tribes within the territory of the United States as independent or semi-independent nationalities, and as such, treaties were made with them to purchase lands from them, to set aside other lands for their occupation, and to pay them annuities. One of the tribes with which such treaties had been made was that of the Cherokees, for whom a large reservation in Northern Georgia had been set apart, (with a promise that it should be theirs forever) by a treaty to which no objection was made by the state officials when it was formed, submitted to the Senate for ratification and rati- fied. About 1820 some of the people of that state became greedy for this land and in 1825 the state as a whole determined to have it, whether the treaty were violated or not and whether the fed- eral authorities were willing or not. The legis- lature ordered a survey which the federal law and President Adams forbade. Gov. Troup an- nounced that the survey should be made neverthe- less and the President gave orders to the federal troops to protect the Cherokee reservation. The 24 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? legislature appealed to all the states from Vir- ginia and Missouri to the gulf to unite in resist- ing the federal power. The other states gave no military aid but their newspapers and politicians encouraged the rebellious spirit. A man who had committed murder in the Cherokee territory was arrested by state officials, tried and condemned to death by a state court in violation of the treaty which gave the Indians exclusive jurisdiction over all crimes committed within their reserva- tion. The convicted man appealed to the Federal Supreme Court which issued a writ of review. Georgia defied the mandate of the federal tribunal and hanged the man. The state also imprisoned some missionaries who were living on the Chero- kee reservation without a state license, which last was devised for the purpose of excluding white men who would advise the Indians how to protect their rights. One of these missionaries appealed to the Federal Supreme Court which decided that the license law was void and the imprisonment under it illegal. This judgment did not come till Jackson was President, and as he hated the Cher- okees and John Adams and John Marshall the Chief Justice of the United States, and adapted his opinions to his passions, he refused to en- force the order of the Court. He said "John Mar- shall has made his decision, let him enforce it." The federal troops were withdrawn from the reservation, the Cherokees were given up to their REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 25 enemies; their land was taken, and they were driven away to the region west of , the Mississippi, and the authority of the United States was de- feated and disgraced. Sec. 6. Double Citizenship. — If one citizen of Cali- fornia sues another, he must bring his action in a state court, before a judge elected, for a short term, by the people; but if he sues a citizen of Oregon he may take his case to a federal court be- fore a judge appointed for life by the President. The difference of these jurisdictions is often of great pecuniary importance, and implies a serious inequality in the rights attached to residence. Double citizenship, double allegiances, double governmental protections and double jurisdictions in the same class of lawsuits, all imply political blundering. An alien also has the choice of be- ginning his suit in a federal or a state court, thus giving him a decided advantage over a citizen, who applies to a court in a civil case, in his own state. The federal government not only fails to per- form its highest duty, that of protecting its citi- zens, but it proclaims the fact that the exclusive power to protect them belongs to the states. Mur- der and arson and riot may rage publicly over ex- tensive districts for week after week in its terri- tory without the least obstruction by the forces of the United States. By its impotence in many places where it should be master, it exposes it- self to hatred and contempt. 26 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Sec. 7. Unprotected Rights.- — The highest duty of government is to protect the rights of its people; and in our country, this duty belongs, legally not to the nation but to the state which has exclusive jurisdiction over the relations of parent and child, husband and wife, master and servant, landlord and tenant, seller and buyer, and criminal and vic- tim of crime. The nation has citizens but has not the constitutional power to guard them against oppression. It can talk much and do little. More than a hundred American citizens are murdered, in the average year, by mobs, — in ex- ceptional years more than three hundred, — with- out punishment, without serious prosecution and without violation of federal law. If a general of the United States, while marching at the head of a large national army through Chicago or any other American city, should find himself in the midst of a great riot, and should see a mob mas- sacre a hundred men and set fire to a thousand houses, he would have no official right to interfere, though solicited to do so by the citizens by the mayor; or by the city council, and it may be doubted whether he could properly interfere at the request of the Governor, until after the latter had satisfied the President of the United States that he could not convene the legislature. In a proclamation issued October 17th, 1876, President Grant said "It has been satisfactorily shown that insurrection and domestic violence REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 27 exist in several counties in the state of South Carolina and that certain combinations of men against the law exist in many counties of the state, known as 'rifle clubs/ who ride up and down by day and night in arms, murdering some peace- ful citizens and intimidating others." This com- plaint of a wide-spread, very serious and long-con- tinuing wrong was not followed by any punish- ment of the offenders, nor by any respectable at- tempt to punish them. After the officials of South Carolina, under the authority of a local law, had repeatedly imprison- ed colored citizens of Massachusetts who as sail- ors or ship cooks entered the harbor of Charles- ton, and had kept them in jail till their vessels were about to sail away, in 1844, Samuel Hoar, a lawyer of Boston was sent by his state to plead the rights of these men in the courts, under the fed- eral constitution; but his stay was very brief, for he was driven out by a mob, sanctioned by the leading men of the city and of the state govern- ment, and told that if he should return, the mob would promptly take his life. The Union did nothing in this case. Sec. 8. Suffrage Denied. — Year after year for a quarter of a century, the federal government has violated its public promise to hundreds of thou- sands of its colored citizens that they should be al- lowed to have a share in the government as voters. It has the excuse that it has not power 28 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? enough to keep its promise, but why should it con- tinue to exist if it cannot perform the most im- portant of its duties? Why not make way for an- other government that can protect its citizens? Why not revoke the promise which it cannot keep? The intelligent white men of South Caro- lina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia say that the exclusion of the negroes from the polls is ab- solutely necessary for the protection of life and property and public order; and that they are compelled to violate the law at every election for the purpose of preventing anarchy. They have a right to complain of being subjected to such a compulsion. The following table shows the population of some southern states in 1890, the number of votes which they cast at the Presiden- tial election in 1896, and the percentage of votes as compared with the total population in each of these states and in all the states: 1 Per States. Population. Vote. cent. Alabama 1,513,017 194,572 13 Arkansas 1,128,179 149,397 13 Florida 391,422 46,461 11 Georgia 1,837,353 163,061 9 Louisiana 1,118,587 101,045 9 Mississippi 1,289,600 70,566 6 S. Carolina 1,151,149 68,907 6 All States 61,908,906 14,073,285 21 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 29 Among a hundred people in the United States the average number who voted at the Presiden- tial election in 1896 was twenty-one; but in two of the states, where the proportion of negroes is largest, the number was only six; in two others it was nine; in one it was eleven and in two thir- teen. At least 800,000 negroes, who had a legal right to vote and who would have liked to vote, stayed away from the polls for fear of being beaten or killed if they insisted on voting. This treatment of the negroes and whites in the cotton states suggests other interests besides those of the victims of the oppression. Though reason and justice are often grossly and persist- ently abused, they have a habit of occasionally squaring accounts with a rudeness proportioned to the magnitude of their wrongs. The conduct of our rulers towards its negro citizens has a queer counterpart in the quixotic enterprise of giving "a stable independent government," (so the pur- pose has been officially defined) to the inferior, alien, and ignorant tropical mulattoes and ne- groes of Cuba, — an enterprise undertaken at the demand and with the cooperation of both the great political parties of our country. The ex- ample that we have set, of interfering to give political power to people, unfit for it, is too foolish to stimulate European nations to meddle in our internal affairs with a similar motive. 30 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Sec. 9. Strike-Rebellions. — Our country has been disgraced by a number of Trade Union strikes which developed into prolonged, extensive and destructive rebellions, never equalled elsewhere because no other land combines an industry so highly advanced with a government so feeble in its dealings with internal disorders. Great strikes have been numerous in England, but their greatness there in the last generation has been confined to the long abstention from work by many men; whereas the worst American strikes have been distinguished by their insurrectionary violence, their public murders and massacres, their battles with troops, their immense destruc- tion of property, their wholesale robberies, their control over the local police, militia and magistrates, and the inability of the government to punish the criminals. A government cannot protect its citizens nor give them a proper moral education without pun- ishing crime promptly and severely; and this re- mark applies as much to the crime actuated by a false conception of political right, — such as the assassination of a ruler, or the anarchical de- struction of private or public property, — as to that actuated by personal greed or malice. Of the numerous great crimes committed by mobs in the United States, not one has ever been prop- erly punished; and the consequence is a danger- ous condition of public feeling in many cities. REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 31 Sec. 10. Missouri Pacific. — The great Missouri Pacific Kailway strike began at Marshall, Texas, by order of the Knights of Labor on the 1st of March, 1888, and was maintained for three months without interference by the federal au- thorities, except that a Congressional Committee investigated the matter and advised the strikers to compromise on the basis that those who had not been guilty of violence should be restored to their places. The railways affected by this strike had an aggregate length of 5,000 miles, em- ployed 10,000 men, and furnished transportation for 4,000,000 people, occupying an area of 400,000 square miles. A large amount of property was destroyed; besides the men in the railway ser- vice, a very large number of others were deprived of employment, and the total money loss was es- timated to be $20,000,000 of which the railway companies lost $5,500,000. The Governors of Mis- souri, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas, each, issued a proclamation urging the people to protect the property which the strikers were destroying or injuring; and several of them called out the militia to aid in the preservation of order; but they did not appeal to the federal authorities. Sec. 11. Pittsburg. — In June, 1877, a great strike of railway laborers paralyzed business in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. Among its results were the mur- der of fifty persons, the serious wounding of one 32 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? hundred others, the destruction of property worth $10,000,000, the disturbance of business in- flicting losses of at least $25,000,000 additional on individuals, and the stopping of traffic on 6,000 miles of railway. In Pittsburg it became most violent, a mob held control for more than twenty-four hours; the large railway station was burned; a hundred locomotives were ruined by fire, and merchandise was stolen from hundreds of freight cars. The militia were called out in Pittsburg, Baltimore and Chicago and in the last named city nineteen persons were killed in a con- flict between the troops and the rioters. The federal authority did nothing to repress or pun- ish the crimes of this great strike. Sec. 12. Homestead. — In June, 1892, the men employed in the Homestead Iron Works near Pittsburg struck, and threatened to destroy the mills. The employers brought two hundred and seventy Pinkerton men from Chicago to protect their property. The news of this importation of defenders gave great offense to the Trade Unions of Pittsburg and vicinity, and they prepared a re- ception for the strangers. They stationed them- selves on the bank of the river, — the Pinkertons came in a boat, — and when it was near the land- ing place, the Unionists attacked the boat with rifles and a cannon. The result was that seven- teen men were killed and thirty-five wounded, and the Pinkertons were driven away. The REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 33 strike lasted five months, caused thirty-five vio- lent deaths, inflicted a loss of |4,000,000 on the Homestead Company, and a loss of much more on people not members of the Company. This strike did not come within the range of federal law. Sec. 13. Pullman. — The Pullman Eailway strike occurred in June, 1894, and was, in some respects, a very notable affair. The Pullman Palace Car Company had its shops in a town all the land and houses of whic'h it owned. It em- ployed hundreds of men, paid them good wages, gave them steady employment, and made sacri- fices to provide them with comfortable homes and good surroundings. Throughout the United States business was greatly depressed in 1893 and 1894, and the Company finding that it could not sell its cars at cost, after losing f 50,000, in- stead of dismissing half of its workmen, made a relatively small reduction in wages so that half the subsequent loss should fall on the laborers and half on the company. Some of the me- chanics planned a strike against this reduction and, for the purpose of having strong support, joined the American Eailway Union (a Trade Union) which had 150,000 members, and which, -as it claimed to be composed entirely of men em- ployed by railway companies, should not have admitted car-builders. The Eailway Union sent a committee of Pullman laborers to the office of 34 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? the Pullman Company to demand a restoration of the former rate of wages. The Vice Presi- dent, who was the acting head of the Company, told the committee that a little time would be re- quired for the examination of their representa- tions and that they should soon have an answer; and he assured them that no one of the com- mittee would be discharged for his action as a committeeman. Several days later a foreman, who knew nothing of what had been done at the meeting, discharged two members of the com- mittee temporarily, because just then there was nothing in the Shop for them to do. The Rail- way Union assumed that this "laying off" or tem- porary discharge was a deliberate violation of the Vice President's promise on the 13th of June, ordered a strike and sent a demand to all the railway companies which had offices in Chicago that they should not haul Pullman cars in their trains. This preposterous demand was refused and thereupon the American Railway Union ordered all its men employed on these roads to quit work. The train men obeyed; they would not operate trains nor let others operate them. They made great riots; burned hundreds of cars; tore up tracks; paralyzed the railway traffic of a large part of the country; beat the outsiders who wanted to do the work and caused the death of a dozen persons, and the loss of $20,000,000 to the companies and the people. REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 35 As the companies were not permitted to trans- port the mails as they had been in the habit of doing and they had contracted to do, President Cleveland sent national troops to protect the trains and when the strikers interfered, a federal judge sent their leader to jail for contempt of court to ruminate for six months in durance. Of the numerous murders and other crimes com- mitted in this rebellion, for such it was, not one was punished under the law of the United States. The federal courts had no jurisdiction over these offenses, not even when the victims were officers of the federal army, slain while they were enforcing, and because they were enforcing the federal laws. A lieutenant of the federal army was murdered by strikers in California, — the disturbance crossed the continent — and the chief murderer was tried and convicted by a state not a federal court. The nation was placed in a humiliating posi- tion when it could not punish the interruption of its mails in any way except by treating it as a contempt of court. In reference to this affair H. J. Ford (286) says: "In assuming to regulate interstate commerce, Congress put upon the na- tional administration the responsibility of main- taining interstate railroads as national high- ways. The significance of this never dawned upon the country until the railroad strikes of 1894 took place, when the arm of the federal 36 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? power was suddenly extended to suppress riot and quell disorder. The popular belief had al- ways been that the national government could not act in such cases until requested by state au- thority, but now state authority was not only ignored, but its protests were unheeded. Time was when such action would have convulsed the nation and might have caused collision between state and federal authority, but the act was hailed with intense gratification both North and South; the governors who took up the old cry of state rights were loaded with derision, and a Congress, Democratic in both branches, passed resolutions by acclamation approving the action of the executive." This strike continued for several weeks and might have been maintained for months, but it soon collapsed when President Cleveland showed them that, if necessary, he would order an army to Chicago to fight the populace. The Governor of Illinois, a man utterly unfit for such a place, not only did not request federal aid but protested against federal intermeddling. Sec. 14. Wardner.— Between 1892 and 1899, the mining district near Wardner, Idaho, was the scene of many crimes committed by the members of the Miner's Union who beat, drove out, and murdered many good citizens, blew up two val- uable gold mills, destroyed much other property, terrorized and corrupted the officers of the law, REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 37 defied the militia, gave them battle and defied the government. The criminals elected men of their own class to the county offices and those who should have enforced the law, participated in the mobs and committed perjury when brought before the state courts and compelled to give evi- dence about the crimes they had witnessed. On the 29th of May, 1899, a party of eight hundred men, gathered in the town of Burke, seized a railway train, went with it to Wardner and there blew up the Bunker Hill mill (which cost $200,- 000), murdered one man, wounded several, and threatened many. The federal authority can- not punish any of these crimes. Of these eight hundred rioters and murderers, ten were con- victed and sentenced to brief terms of imprison- ment, because the Governor of Idaho was a man of superior character; and willing to ruin his political career rather than let such great crimes go without punishment. Sec. 15. Pana. — The coal mining region of cen- tral Illinois in which Pana is a prominent point has been in a riotous and rebellious condition fre- quently within the last ten years. In 1894, four officers of the law were seriously wounded, and the hoisting works of two mines were burned by members of the Miner's Union. These people were so violent, so arrogant and so criminal, that the owners of the coal mines determined to em- ploy negro miners, American citizens, who would 38 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? be more peaceful and more faithful. On the 12th of October, 1898, fourteen persons, mostly negro miners were murdered, twenty were wounded, and all negroes in the town of Virden were forci- bly driven out. The governor of the state called out the state militia, not to enforce the laws, but to violate them, net to protect the orderly citi- zens of the United States but to assist the rebels against those laws to drive the negro laborers away. Two months later President McKinley delivered a long message to Congress on the polit- ical condition of the country, but said nothing about the murder of citizens and their unlawful expulsion from places where they had a right to be. Such wrongs were no part of the business of the United States; if these colored American citizens had gone to Mexico, or France, or China, or Germany, and had there been murdered or driven out by force, the President would have made a great blow about the wrongs. On the 9th of April, 1899, seven men were killed and nine wounded in a riot in Pana, and on the 17th of September, 1899 six negro miners were murdered at Cartersville in open daylight; and these crimes, witnessed by many men, have not been punished nor has any serious attempt been made to punish them. The strikers and murderers have numerous votes of which the offi- cials are afraid. REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 39 Sec. 16. Leadville. — Because their demand for an increase of daily pay from two dollars and fifty cents to three dollars was denied, the Union miners of Leadville, Colorado, struck in June, 1896; and threatened to burn the mills and hoisting works of the silver mines. The state militia were called out to protect the property and on the 21st of September there was a battle in which six persons were killed and a dozen seriously wounded. After the strike had continued nine months, and the community had lost $4,000,000, peace and quiet were restored. The federal authority did not interfere in this disturbance. Sec. 17. St. Louis. — A typical street-car strike, similar in its main features to many others in the cities of the United States, began in St. Louis on the 8th of May 1900, and continued more than a month, with riotous disorders on many days, frequent use of fire-arms and dynamite, a dozen violent deaths, many wounds, much damage by mobs to cars, tracks, buildings, employees and passengers; great pecuniary loss to many per- sons; the failure of the authorities of the law to protect person or property or to punish the crim- inals and the prosecution in the courts not of the rioters but of those citizens who, under the direc- tion of the law, resisted the mob. The officials of the city were guided by the precedents of in- efficiency in other cities and by the fear of losing the votes of the mob at the next election. 40 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Sec. 18. Griffin. — The newspapers of the 25th of May 1899 published the following telegram sent on the previous day from Griffin, Georgia, "The flogging of three colored operatives of the Kincaid mills on Monday night by Whitecaps has led to sensational developments. Last night an- other negro was taken from his house and se- verely beaten and cut. These negroes are law- abiding citizens. To-day the superintendent and others at the Kincaid mills were notified to leave at once or they would be 'dealt with.' It now de- velops that there has been a club formed here known as the Laborer's Union Band, with the purpose of driving the negroes out of the country. The band has about five hundred members, a large number of whom are boys under age. Upon orders from the Governor the Griffin Eifles are in their armory awaiting orders from Judge Ham- mond to proceed to the factory. The Mayor has been reliably informed that if the militia go to the factory there will be trouble in the city to- night. He has ordered all the police on duty throughout the night." The journal from which that was cut gave no later news from Griffin; possibly, as often happens, the news collector of the place was warned that the climate would be unwholesome for him if he sent any more news over the wires about the local "labor troubles." The Griffin mob did what many other mobs in the cotton states have done; they forbade the REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 41 negroes to compete with white people who wanted to earn money in a certain branch of em- ployment. In such cases violence is threatened to the outsiders who wish to work and to the em- ployers who are anxious for their services; and the strikers, who interfere with the liberty of the two other classes, are criminals whom the com- munity tolerate or encourage and the law fails to punish. Sec. 19. Lynch Latv. — The following extract from a press telegram gives an account of a nota- ble case of American lynch law, with which the federal authorities have no concern because the victim was an American citizen tortured and murdered in his native state. "Maysville (Ky.), December 6. [1899] — Kichard Coleman, a negro, the confessed murderer of Mrs. James Lash- brook, wife of his employer, expiated his crime in daylight to-day at the hands of a mob, consist- ing of thousands of citizens, by burning at the stake after suffering torture and fright beyond description. The dreadful spectacle occurred on the peaceful cricket grounds of this, one of the oldest and among the proudest cities in Ken- tucky. The barbarities inflicted upon this young negro by citizens of one of the most highly civil- ized cities of the State are mostly beyond belief and can only be accounted for by the intense horror created by long consideration of the atro- cious crime of which full confession had been made by Coleman. 42 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? "The mob carried Coleman to a small hollow near the railroad, where they bound him tightly to a young sapling. Then they heaped a pile of brushwood and timber around him and fired the stack. Some one cut his eyes out and in a mo- ment his head rolled around and he was believed to be dead. The scene was a fearful one. Around the funeral pyre were thousands of mad- dened people headed by the husband of the dead woman. A match was applied simultaneously and tongues of fire swept up and around the agonized wretch. "The place of execution had been selected weeks ago in accordance with all other arranged details of the programme mapped out by the leaders of the mob. The prisoner was dragged to the sapling and strapped against the tree and faced the husband of the victim. Large quanti- ties of dry brush and large bits of wood were piled around him while he was praying for speedy death. James Lashbrook, the husband of the victim, applied the first match to the brush. A brother of the victim struck the sec- ond match. Some one with a knife viciously slashed at the prisoner's chest. By a sort of cruel concurrence of action on the part of the mob not a shot was fired. The purpose seemed to be to give the wretch the greatest possible amount and duration of torture. A fatal shot would have been merciful, but there was no mercy in the crowd surrounding the murderer. REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 43 "As the flames arose Coleman's terror in- creased. He made vain efforts to withdraw his limbs from the encroaching fire and his eyes rolled in a frenzy of suffering. The ropes secur- ing him to the tree were burned and his body finally fell forward on the burning pile. Even then, although it was not certain whether he was living or dead, the vengeful purpose of the crowd led them to use rails and long poles to push his body back into the flames. It is not certain how long life lasted. During the process of burning, while his voice could be heard, he begged for a drink of water, his tongue protrud- ing and his eyeballs fairly starting from his head. At the end of three hours the body was practi- cally cremated. During all that time members of the family of Mrs. Lashbrook had remained to keep up the fire, and to keep the body in position where it would continue to burn. After three hours a nephew of Mrs. Lashbrook was still pushing the body on the burning embers, while a curious crowd of several thousand persons lin- gered on the scene." Maysville is a city of about 10,000 inhabitants and is situated on the southern bank of the Ohio. A thousand, if not thousands of outrages, similar to this one, have been committed in the United States, and not one has ever been punished, or made the subject of special complaint by a Pres- ident of the United States. He is quick to com- 44 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? plain when one of our citizens is maltreated in Turkey or China. Sec. 20. Koszta. — Although the President and his generals and admirals aire powerless to pro- tect American citizens within the limits of the States, even subordinate officers have authority to give such protection in foreign lands and wa- ters. The most notable instance of such protec- tion occurred in the bay of Smyrna in July 1853 when Capt. Ingraham of the sloop of war St. Louis demanded from an Austrian warship the surrender of Martin Koszta, a Hungarian who had declared his intention to become an Ameri- can citizen but had not been finally naturalized. This demand was accompanied by a threat that if denied, the guns should be brought into play. The Austrian Commander, fearful to assume re- sponsibility, gave up the man. The conduct of Ingraham was approved and justified, in diplo- matic correspondence, by President Pierce, and commended by Congress which ordered that a medal should be struck in honor of the event. The contrast between this extreme efficiency in protecting abroad one man who was not a citizen of the United States and the absolute inability to protect at home hundreds or thousands of na- tive born citizens is remarkable. The federal government is nowhere so weak as within its own territorv REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 45 Sec. 21. Italians Mobbed. — A mob murdered some Italians in New Orleans in 1891, and the Italian government was not satisfied with obtain- ing an indemnity of f 5,000 for each of the victims but complained bitterly of the national govern- ment which did not punish, nor try to punish, nor possess the power to punish such interna- tional outrages. Benjamin Harrison, who was President at the time, makes the following re- marks about the affair in his book entitled This Country of Ours (123) "Some suggestions grow- ing out of this unhappy incident are worthy the attention of Congress. It would, I believe, be entirely competent for Congress to make offenses against the treaty rights of foreigners domiciled in the United States cognizable in the Federal Courts. This has not, however, been done. . . . It seems to me to follow, in this state of law, that the officers of the State charged with police and judicial powers in such cases must, in the consideration of international questions grow- ing out of such incidents, be regarded in such sense as Federal agents as to make this Govern- ment answerable for their acts in cases where it would be answerable if the United States had used its constitutional power to define and pun- ish crimes against treaty rights." While he was suggesting amendments to the law he might have proposed that the state which permits the murder of a man by a mob shall pay 46 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? $10,000 damages to his family or relatives, and also that the citizen shonld have as much protec- tion as the alien. In 1899 another massacre of Italians, in Louis- iana, furnished the basis for the following tele- gram sent out from Washington on the 13tk of January 1900: "The Italian Government has signified to the Government of the United States in the polite and courteous way known to diplo- macy a wish that the persons guilty of lynching the five Italians at Talulah, La., last spring should be punished. Heretofore in cases of lynching of Italians the matter has been compromised !by the payment of an indemnity, but this does not meet the present demand of the Italian Government. "As under the existing law the trial and pros- ecution of such cases as this is left entirely to the state authorities, the National Government is well nigh helpless to meet the request of the Italian Government. The investigation made by the State of Louisiana was so unsatisfactory that the National Government undertook an investi- gation by its own agents to learn the facts at- tending the lynching. The result of this inquiry is now on file. But the United States Govern- ment cannot make the report the basis of any legal proceedings against the lynchers. As an outcome of this embarrassing position the Presi- dent will probably make fresh representations to Congress, urging the speedy passage of the 'bills REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 47 intended to remove from state courts jurisdiction in cases where persons claiming treaty protec- tion are the victims and transferring jurisdiction over them to the Federal courts." Sec. 22. Vigilance. — The impotence of the fed- eral government has been shown in many histori- cal cases. One of the most noted was that of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856, which was master of the city for three months. It included many of the leading merchants, bank- ers and educated men of the city, and had 5000 members, whom it armed, drilled and kept under strict discipline. It was the most orderly and admirable mob the world has ever seen; it re- belled against one of the most corrupt bosses and municipal rings in the United States. On the 21st of May it marched with muskets and a can- non to the city jail, compelled the sheriff to let it take out two murderers, whom it imprisoned for three days in its own prison, and then after try- ing and convicting, publicly hanged in open day, the leaders and members of the Committee show- ing their faces and making no secret of their re- sponsibility. The Committee afterwards ar- rested and executed two other murderers with equal deliberation and publicity. They ban- ished twenty ballot-box stuffers whose crimes were not punishable with death under the law, and forbade them to return under penalty of the gallows. They imprisoned D. S. Terry, Chief 48 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, seven weeks and did not liberate him until the physi- cians declared that the committee's officer whom Terry had wounded, would recover. They held military control of the city for three months while the state authorities were powerless. The Governor appealed to U. S. Major General Wool but he would do nothing because he said the Governor could convene the legislature and did not do so. To assemble the legislature would require at least a month, — at that time there were few miles of railway or telegraph in the state — and such a delay in dealing with a mob was ridiculous. Terry came to the city to see what he could do to assist in the enforcement of the state au- thority and in his presence an agent of the Com- mittee undertook to arrest a man. Terry stabbed and dangerously wounded this agent and was thereupon seized and kept in prison for seven weeks, until the wounded man was out of danger. A state Court issued a writ of Habeas Corpus for Terry's release, but the state authori- ties were powerless, so the writ was practically a nullity. Thereupon an application was made to Judge McAllister of the U. S. Circuit Court, but he kept the matter under consideration for weeks until Terry was at liberty. To refuse or delay the issuance of a Habeas Corpus writ is a very serious judicial offense, in a case over which the REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 49 Court has jurisdiction; but in this case, the im- prisonment of Terry was a matter that came un- der the exclusive control of the state laws. No censure was pronounced by the President or Congress on General Wool or Judge McAllister; they were treated as if they had done their whole duty. The Governor after failing to obtain help from Gen. Wool, applied to the President who refused to do anything, perhaps for the reasons that his interference might seriously injure the Demo- cratic party in the presidential election then near at hand, and that the Committee would probably have disbanded within the two months that must elapse between the sending of such an applica- tion, and the receipt of a response. Besides serving to illustrate the inability of the nation to protect its citizens, this Vigilance Committee is interesting as a proof that some of the American law is so bad that the l best citizens may combine for its violation, and may be hon- ored in later years because they did so. The men who were members of this organization estab- lished the People's Party, which for nearly twen- ty years maintained the best municipal govern- ment in the United States at that time. After they became a small minority of the voters, cor- ruption again obtained control. A national government, which refuses to inter- fere in a state rebellion, at the request of the 50 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? governor, until his application has been ap- proved by the legislature, is a fit associate for a state government, the head of which sides with the mob, as in Illinois, and protests against the protection of the postal system by the federal au- thorities. Such are some of the beauties of our government. Sec. 23. Federalism Reviewed. — All the dis- graceful events, all the disorders, and all the dangers, described in this chapter, have their origin in the Divided Sovereignty of our govern- ment. Federation is responsible for the seces- sion agitation which was a great and continuous menace to our national existence for sixty years and was powerful enough to control the choice of a president, in nine out of twenty-two elec- tions. The weakness of our central administration was indirectly to blame for the frequency, the virulence, the prolonged maintenance and the extensive prevalence of strike-rebellions, openly favored ,; by millions of citizens who lacked the power but not the wish to overwhelm law and government for the purpose of securing their foolish and criminal demands. If we adhere to our federal feebleness, a future conjuncture of circumstances may enable some strike-rebellion to overwhelm us with a national catastrophe greater than any in our past history. REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 51 By leaving the highest attributes of sover- eignty to the states, by limiting the authority of its officials to foreign and interprovincial affairs and by thus accepting a subordinate and weak position, our central government has deprived it- self of the power to command the devout alle- giance of its citizens or to gain the admiration or respect of other countries. Intense prejudices separated the states at the close of the last century. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina had differences of blood, law, church and industry. Fish, ships, furs, wheat, tobacco, timber, tar and rice were the pro- duction of regions that had conflicting interests. The descendants of the Puritans and the descend- ants of the Cavaliers had not lost the animosities that filled the heads of their ancestors; and both classes hated the Dutch of New York and the Germans of Pennsylvania as much as they hated each other. There was no intimate intercourse between the groups of colonies. They had neither railways nor steamboats; they had not consorted in the country west of the Alleghanies; their meetings in the revolutionary armies, in- stead of making friendships had in some cases, increased animosities. The ablest men of the revolutionary period wanted a consolidated government, and among them were Washington, Hamilton, Marshall, 52 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Franklin, and John Jay. Finding that they could not get anything stronger than a weak fed- eration, they became its ardent advocates, not be- cause they could consider it satisfactory but l be- cause it was the best within reach. Hamilton did not conceal his disappointment; he said a "nation without a national government is a frightful spectacle." The record of federalism in history, considered as a whole is not creditable. The Achaean League from 281 to 146 B. 0. in ancient Greece had a brief existence and achieved no great result. The Swiss League from 1291 till 1900 was en- abled to maintain its existence by the jealousy of its neighbors. It did not become fully independ- ent of the German Empire until 1648, and since that year has had no foreign war of note. Its federalism, made excusable by the differences of two religions and three languages in its century, is much stronger than ours, and its government has not only foeen more harmonious but much purer and better in nearly every respect. The Dutch Kepublic from 1579 to 1795, had a short life and a career, brilliant on many points, and yet dark with many serious internal dissen- sions. The United States of America, from 1789 to 1900, full of interprovincial discord and demands of separation for three quarters of a century and REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 53 full of corruption and disorder during the re- mainder of its existence. The United States of Mexico from 1825 till 1900, with interruptions. Its nominal federal- ism has usually been anarchical or despotic. The same remark applies to the United States of Central America, which, however, had a brief existence. The United States of Colombia, when orderly, have been anarchical or despotic. So also the United States of Venezuela. So also the United States of Ecuador. The Argentine Kepublic has l been the most successful federation in Latin America. The United States of Brazil have had a very brief career. It is a noteworthy fact that no American au- thor has written an argument to prove that the federal system is better than a consolidated na- tionality; and yet if such proof could be fur- nished, its publication would be one of the most urgent duties of our statesmen, lawyers and pro- fessors of political philosophy. John Adams, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Kent, Story, Wheaton, Webster, Sumner, Calhoun, Cooley, Lincoln, Garfield and others, who discussed im- portant governmental questions with learning and wisdom, never selected this topic as the sub- ject of an essay, an oration or a book. Their avoidance of it is significant. The division of 54 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? sovereignty has not been commended by the most eminent foreign political philosophers of our time, nor has it been copied from us in any of the European constitutions of the XlXth cen- tury; but it is in favor with the anarchists, col- lectivists and socialists. The enemies of effi- cient government are friends of federalism by instinct. "The English constitution," says Bagehot (289) "in a word, is framed on the principle of choosing a single sovereign authority and making it good; the American, upon the principle of having many sovereign authorities and hoping that their mul- titude may atone for their inferiority. The Americans now extol their institutions, and so defraud themselves of their due praise. But if they had not a genius for politics, if they had not a moderation in action singularly curious where superficial speech is so violent; if they had not a regard for law such as no great people have yet evinced and infinitely surpassing ours, — the mul- tiplicity of authorities in the American constitu- tion would long ago have brought it to a bad end. Sensible shareholders, I have heard a shrewd at- torney say, can work any deed of settlement; and so the men of Massachusetts could, I believe, work any constitution. Political liberty is a condition in which a com- munity is secure in the enjoyment of equal civil and political rights; and of such enjoyment there REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 55 is less today in the United States, than in Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany or France. In those coun- tries, crime is punished and riot suppressed promptly and efficiently; and a central govern- ment being responsible for the maintenance of order, order is maintained. 56 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? CHAPTEK II. CONFLICT OF DEPARTMENTS. Section 24. Checks. — The federal and state constitutions of our country have been framed under the influence of Montesquieu's whim, that the legislative, administrative and judicial de- partments should be kept separate, by providing that a person, who has authority in one, shall have none in another. This idea, adopted in de- fiance of all political experience, has proved to be one of the greatest blunders of our govern- ment. Among the results, of this lack of a central dominant and responsible power, are great con- fusion and inefficiency in all governmental af- fairs, bad management of the currency, careless and incompetent legislation, log-rolling and lo-bbying, extravagance tending to national bankruptcy; and a system of jurisprudence that is more complex, technical and expensive than any other in the world. All those European States which enjoyed steady prosperity, through many centuries under constitutional governments, gave the control of REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 57 the administration to the legislature; and the re- publics and monarchies of Europe, in proportion as they are more or less constitutional, have adopted this principle, and given it prominence in their political systems. John Adams wrote an instructive account of the checks and balances of our federal system in 1814, when some of the worst features of our gov- ernment, as it is now, had not yet been devel- oped, when no good account of the system of cabinet rule in Great Britain had been published, and when some of its main principles were not yet finally settled. He said (VI. 467) "Is not the con- stitution of the United States complicated with the idea of a balance? Is there a constitution on record more complicated with balances than ours? In the first place eighteen states and some terri- tories are balanced against the national govern- ment, whether judiciously or injudiciously, I will not presume at present to conjecture. We have seen some of the effects of it in some of the south- ern and middle states, under the two first admin- istrations [Washington and Adams] and we now behold some similar effects under the two last [Jefferson and Madison]. Some genius more prompt and fertile than mine may infer from a little what a great deal means. In the second place the House of Representatives is balanced against the Senate and the Senate against the House. In the third place, the executive author- 58 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? ity is in some degree balanced against the legis- lature. In the fourth place, the judiciary is bal- anced against the House, the Senate, the Execu- tive and the State governments. In the fifth place the Senate is balanced against the Presi- dent in all appointments to office and in all treat- ties. This, in my opinion, is not merely a useless but a very pernicious balance. In the sixth place the people hold, in their own hands, the balance against their representatives by bien- nial, which I wish had been annual elections. In the seventh place, the legislatures of the several states are balanced against the Senate by sex- tennial elections. In the eighth place, the elec- tors are balanced against the people in the choice of President. And here is a complication and re- finement of balances which for anything I recol- lect is an invention of our own and peculiar to us." This system of checks divides and practically destroys responsibility, and renders proper official discipline impossible. From the federa- tion it extends into the states and cities, and there produces even greater confusion and evil. By his appointing power, the President has a partial control over his administrative subordi- nates but under the Government and Mayor the heads of departments owe their places to the Boss or the Machine, and are exempt from any control. In his statement, Adams omits many pernicious REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 59 checks, including the Committee System, which however was not fully developed in his time, and including also the numerous boards which have independent control of important portions of ad- ministrative work in our states and cities. Sec. 25. Divided Responsibility. — Instead of de- fining and strengthening responsibility, as they should have done, if they had understood the lessons of political experience, our lawmakers have placed nearly all our officials in such posi- tions that they can not be held accountable or punished for their mistakes or malfeasances. The administration is independent of the legisla- ture not only in the federation but also in the states and cities; the governors are independent of the President; inferior executive officers are independent of the governors, and so also are the mayors, to whom many inferior executive officers m their respective cities owe no obedience. Much of the governmental work of our states and cities is done by boards, which are consti- tuted in such a manner that they are not subject to any proper control. Many valuable lessons of experience, clearly taught in European books of political philosophy, are unknown to American officials; and, even if they were known, could not be applied in a country where most of the places in the public service are given for short terms to unfit men, as rewards for partisan service. The only responsibility, felt l by such officials, is to 60 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? their party which is always anxious to conceal their blunders and their crimes. In his Representative Government (266) John S. Mill says, "A most important principle of good government, in a popular constitution, is that no executive functionaries should be appointed by popular election, neither by the votes of the people themselves nor by those of their representatives. The entire business of government is skilled em- ployment; the qualifications for the discharge of it are of that special and professional kind which cannot be properly judged of except by persons who have themselves some share of those quali- fications, or some practical experience of them. The business of finding the fittest persons to fill public employments, — not merely selecting the best who offer, but looking out for the absolutely best, and taking note of all fit persons who are met with, that they may ! be found when wanted, — is very laborious, and requires a delicate as well as highly conscientious discernment; and as there is no public duty which is in general so badly performed, so there is none for which it is of greater importance to enforce the utmost practicable amount of personal responsibility, by imposing it as a special obligation on high functionaries in the several departments. All subordinate public officers who are not appointed by some mode of public competition should be selected on the direct responsibility of the minis- REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Q± ter under whom they serve. The ministers, all but the chief, will naturally be selected k by the chief; and the chief himself, though really desig- nated by Parliament, should be, in a regal gov- ernment, officially appointed by the crown. The functionary who appoints should be the sole per- son empowered to remove any subordinate officer who is liable to removal, which the far greater number ought not to be, except for personal mis- conduct, since it would be in vain to expect that the body of persons by whom the detail of the public business is transacted, and whose quali- fications are generally of much more importance to the public than those of the minister himself, will devote themselves to their profession, and acquire the knowledge and skill on which the minister must often place entire dependence, if they are liable at any moment to be turned adrift for no fault, that the minister may gratify himself, or promote his political interest by ap- pointing somebody else." Mill had much experience in the management of an extensive administration, — that of Hindo- stan under the East India Company, — and, be- sides, he possessed rare political learning and the wisdom to understand the lessons of govern- mental experience. His remarks, therefore, are entitled to much weight, when referring to the unfitness of a legislative body, like the American Congress, for meddling with minor matters of ad- ministration, he says (103): 62 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? "But a popular assembly is still less fitted to administer, or to dictate in detail to those who have the charge of administration. Even when honestly meant, the interference is almost al- ways injurious. Every branch of public admin- istration is a skilled business, which has its own peculiar principles and traditional rules, many of them not even known in any effectual way ex- cept to those who have at some time had a hand in carrying on the business, and none of them likely to be duly appreciated by persons not prac- tically acquainted with the department. I do not mean that the transaction of public business has esoteric mysteries, only to 'be understood by the initiated. Its principles are all intelligible to any person of good sense, who has in his mind a true picture of the circumstances and conditions to be dealt with; but to have this, he must know those circumstances and conditions; and the knowledge does not come by intuition. There are many rules of the greatest importance in every branch of public business (as there are in every private occupation), of which a person fresh to the subject neither knows the reason nor even suspects the existence, because they are intended to meet dangers or provide against inconveniences which never entered into his thoughts." Sec. 26. The Committee System. — There are two methods of doing legislative work; one, called REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 63 Responsible Government, under the control of a ministry which is a committee of the legislature, is of English origin, and is harmonious, economi- cal and efficient; the other, called the Committee System, most highly developed in the United States, divides the business among a number of independent committees who do their work dis- cordantly, inefficiently and extravagantly, with the aid of lobbying, log-rolling, and other various forms of corruption to 'be mentioned in this chap- ter and the next one. The Committee System was an unforeseen prod- uct of the federal constitution; when that docu- ment was framed and under consideration, be- fore its adoption, none of its enemies suggested that the independence of the administration would demoralize Congress, and inflict on the country political evils the like of which the world had never seen, but under which their grandsons and great-grandsons have suffered. The general results of Responsible Govern- ment in British experience are that the ablest men of the country, as a class, desire to have places in Parliament, that the moral standard of official life is high, that the Ministers are men of distinguished ability and long experience in high public place, that every important measure is well stated and argued on both sides in the House of Commons, that the policy of the nation is relatively steadfast, and that the management 64 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? of the finances is economical. These results are the opposites, in nearly every point, to those of the Committee System in the United States. Our ablest men do not want places in Congress; many of the men most influential in our govern- ment have had little or no experience in that body; the most important bills are rushed through without public debate, our govern- mental policy undergoes frequent great changes, and the management of the finances is most ex- travagant. Under the British plan, an important bill can- not be passed, and a financial bill cannot be con- sidered, without the approval of the Cabinet which, because it directs legislation, as well as administration, is responsible to the people for the management of the Government. If the ma- jority of the House of Commons should vote against one important bill proposed by the Cabinet, the latter go out or appeal to the people, and if the decision be adverse, let the other side take charge. Sec. 27. Bagehot and Maine. — Bagehot thus ex- plains (British Constitution, 85) one of the ob- jections to the Committee System; "It causes the degradation of public life. Unless a member of the legislature be sure of something more than speech, unless he is incited by the hope of action and chastened by the chance of responsibility, a first-rate man will not care to take the place, and REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 65 will not do much if he does take it. To belong to a debating society adhering to an executive (and this is no inapt description of a congress un- der a presidential constitution) is not an object to stir a noble ambition, and is a position to en- courage idleness. The members of a parliament excluded from office can never be comparable, much less equal, to those of a parliament not ex- cluded from office. The presidential government, by its nature, divides political life into two halves, an executive half and a legislative half; and by so dividing it makes neither half worth a man's having, — worth his making it a continuous career, — worthy to absorb, as cabinet govern- ment absorbs, his whole soul. The statesmen from whom a nation chooses under a presidential system are much inferior to those from whom it chooses under a cabinet system, while the select- ing apparatus is far less discerning." Explaining the British constitution, Maine says (239) "It is in the Cabinet that the effective work of legislation begins. The Ministers, hard- ly recruited from the now very serious fatigues of a session which lasts all but to the commence- ment of September, assemble in Cabinet in No- vember, and in the course of a series of meetings, extending over rather more than a fortnight, de- termine what legislative proposals are to be sub- mitted to Parliament, These proposals sketched, we may believe, in not more than outline, are 66 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? then placed in the hands of the government draftsman; and so much is there in all legislation which consists in the manipulation of detail and in the adaptation of vaguely conceived novelties to preexisting law, that we should not probably go far wrong, if we attributed four-fifths of every legislative enactment to the accomplished law- yer who puts into shape the government bills. From the measures which come from his hand, the tale of 'bills to be announced in the Queen's speech is made up and at this point English legis- lation enters upon another stage. . . . Every bill introduced into Parliament by the Ministry (and we have seen that all the really important bills are thus introduced) must be carried through the House of Commons without substantial altera- tion or the ministers will resign and conse- quences of the gravest kind may follow in the remotest part of an empire extending to the ends of the earth. Thus a government has to be forced through the House of Commons with the whole strength of party organization and in a shape very closely resembling that which the Executive Government gave it. . . . It is there- fore the Executive Government which should be credited with the authorship of the English legis- lation." To this may be added that at this cabinet meet- ing every secretary states the urgent needs of his department, and is prepared to go into detail if REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 67 questioned by his associates. In many cases his bills drawn by his subordinates or under their direction are ready to be submitted to the stat- ute-drafting lawyer, whose duties are to revise the phraseology and to see that the provisions of the '-bill do not conflict with previous legislation. Sec. 28. Schuyler. — In his book on American Diplomacy, (3) Eugene Schuyler thus explains the distribution of political power in Washington when there was only one Appropriation Com- mittee in the House of Representatives. "The government of the United States, in ordinary peaceful and uneventful times, is a nearly irre- sponsible despotism, composed of five or six men, working under and through constitutional forms, and subject only to the penalty which is always attached to very grave mistakes. These six men are the President of the United States, who is, it is true, elected by the people, but only from two or three candidates proposed by partisan conventions as the result of intrigue or of the fail- ure of intrigue; the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, named by the Presi- dent as his colleagues and associates, rather than his advisers and servants, confirmed by the Sen- ate which never refuses its approval except for cause of the most scandalous nature or for rea- sons of extreme partisan feeling; the Speaker of the House of Representatives who is elected as such by his fellow-congressmen at the dictation 68 REFORM OR REVOLUTION? of a clique or as the result of a compromise be- tween the factions and the personal ambitions of the dominant party; the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Appropriations and the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Ways and Means in the House of Representatives, both appointed by the Speaker, leading men in Com gress and generally his rivals for the speaker- ship." Since that statement was written the number of the ruling clique has been increased by the multiplication of chairmen of appropria- tion committees. Sec. 29. Log-Roiling. — Log-rolling is an insti- tution peculiarly adapted to the intelligence and morals of the average American legislator. It gives him a sphere of activity which he can soon learn, and which enables him to go back to his constituents with tangible results of his influ- ence. He and his associates divide the Union or the State into districts and distribute a large portion of the public revenue among them by giving to one a public building, and to others other things. In this method Congress distributes fed- eral buildings, navy yards, fortifications, and im- provements in rivers and harbors. There is also a log-rolling of occupations; the silver miners, iron smelters, coal miners, cotton spinners, wool growers and lumbermen combine to restrict com- petition and to compel the general public to pay a higher price for their products. In every REFORM OR REVOLUTION? 69 branch of American legislation, the predominant influence is regard not for the general interest but those particular interests which have ob- tained a majority of votes by log-rolling. "For the last ten or fifteen years" wrote Thaddeus Stevens in 1867, "the legislature of Pennsylvania [of which state he was then a Kep- resentative in Congress] has had a most unenvi- able reputation. Corruption, bribery and fraud have been freely charged and I fear, too often proved, to have controlled their actions. No mat- ter how honest when chosen, the atmosphere of Harrisburg seems to have pierced many of them with a demoralizing taint. A seat in the Legis- lature became an object of ambition, not for the per diem, [the salary] but for the chance of levy- ing contributions from rich corporations and other large jobs. Corruption finally became so respectable as to seduce candidates for office boldly, to bid for them, and to pay the cash for the delivery of the ballot. The very office of [federal] senator is known to have been once bought for gold." Sec. 30.