The Twentieth Century American Part 14

CHAPTER X

AMERICAN POLITICS IN ENGLAND

The System of Parties--Interdependence of National and Local Organisations--The Federal Government and Sovereign States--The Boss of Warwicks.h.i.+re--The Unit System--Prime Minister Crooks-- Lanark and the Nation--New York and Tammany Hall--America's Superior Opportunities for Wickedness--But England is Catching up--Campaign Reminiscences--The "h.e.l.l-box"--Politics in a Gravel-pit--Mr. Hearst and Mr. Bryan.

The subject of this chapter will, perhaps, be more easy of comprehension to the English reader if he will for a moment surrender his imagination into my charge while we transfer to England certain political conditions of the United States.

There are in the first place, then, the great political parties, in the nation and in Parliament (Congress); with the fact always to be borne in mind that the members of Congress are not nominated by any central committee or a.s.sociation, but are selected and nominated by the people of each district. A candidate is not "sent down" to contest a given const.i.tuency. He is a resident of that const.i.tuency, selected in small local meetings by the voters themselves.

Next, every County (State) has its own machinery of government, including a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and other County officials as well as a bi-cameral Legislature, with a members.h.i.+p ranging from seventy in some Counties to over three hundred in others. In these County Legislatures and governments, parties are split on precisely the same lines as in the nation and in Parliament. Members of the House of Commons have usually qualified for election by a previous term in the County Legislature, while members of the House of Lords are actually elected direct, not by the people in the ma.s.s, but by the members of the County Legislatures only, each county sending to Westminster two members so elected. Nor is it to be supposed that these County governments are governments in name only.

It is not easy to imagine that in England the Counties, each with its separate and sovereign government, preceded the National Government and voluntarily called it into existence only as a federation of themselves.

But that, we must for the present understand, was indeed the course of history; and when that federation was formed, the various Counties entrusted to the Central Government only a strictly limited list of powers. The Central Government was authorised to treat with foreign nations in the name of the United Counties; to maintain a standing army of limited size, and to create a navy; to establish postal routes, regardless of County boundaries; to regulate commerce between the different Counties, to care for the national coast line and all navigable waters within the national dominions, and to levy taxes for national purposes. All powers not thus specifically conceded to the central authority were, in theory at least, reserved by the individual Counties to themselves; and to-day a County government, except that it cannot interfere with the postal service within its borders, nor erect custom-houses on its County lines to levy taxes on goods coming in from neighbouring Counties, is practically a sovereign government within its own territory.

It is only within the last ten years that the right of the Central Government--the Crown--to use the King's troops to protect from violence the King's property, in the shape of the Royal mails, in defiance of the wishes of the Governor of a County, was established by a decision of the Supreme Court. The Governor protested that the suppression of mobs and tumults within his County borders was his business, his County police and militia being the proper instruments for the purpose, and for the Crown to intervene without his request and sanction was an invasion of the sovereign dignity of the County.

Although so much has been said on this subject by various English writers, from Mr. Bryce downwards, few Englishmen, I think, have comprehended the theoretical significance of this independence of the individual States, and fewer still grasp its practical importance.

Perhaps the most instructive ill.u.s.tration of what it means is to be found in the dilemma in which the American government has, on two occasions in recent years, found itself from its inability to compel a particular State to observe the national treaty obligations to a foreign power.

The former of the two cases arose in Louisiana when a number of citizens of New Orleans (including not only leading bankers and merchants but also, it is said, at least one ex-Governor of the State and one Judge), finding that a jury could not, because of terrorisation, be found to convict certain murderers, Italians and members of the Mafia, took the murderers out of gaol and hanged them in a public square in broad daylight. The Italian government demanded the punishment of the lynchers, and the American government had to confess itself entirely unable to comply with the request. Whether it would have given the satisfaction if it could is another question; but the dealing with the criminals was a matter solely for the Louisiana State authorities, and the Federal Government had no power to interfere with them or to dictate what they should do. The only way in which it could have obtained jurisdiction over the offenders would have been by sending Federal troops into the State to take them by force, a proceeding which the State of Louisiana would certainly have resisted by force, and civil war would have followed. Ultimately, the United States, without acknowledging any liability in the matter, paid to the Italian government a certain sum of money as a voluntary _solatium_ to the widows and families of those who had been killed, and the incident was closed.

The second case, which has recently strained so seriously the relations between the United States and j.a.pan, arose with the State of California, which refused to extend to j.a.panese subjects the privileges to which they are unquestionably ent.i.tled under the "most favoured nation" clause of the treaty between the two governments. It is a matter which cannot be dealt with fully here without too long a digression from the path of our present argument, and will be referred to later. It is enough for the present to point out that once again the National Government--or what we have called the Crown--has been seen to be entirely incapable, without recourse to civil war, of compelling an individual State--or County--to respect the national word when pledged to a treaty with a foreign power.[264:1]

The States then, or Counties, are independent units, in each of which there exists a complete party organisation of each of the great parties, which organisations control the destinies of the parties within the County borders and have no concern whatever with the party fortunes outside. The great parties in the nation and in Parliament must look to the organisations within the several Counties for their support and existence. The loss of a County, say Hamps.h.i.+re, by the local Conservative organisation will mean to the Conservative party in the nation not merely that the members to be elected to the lower house of Parliament by the Hamps.h.i.+re const.i.tuencies will be Liberal, but that the County Legislature will elect two Liberal Peers to the upper house as well; and it is likely that in one or other of the two houses parties may be so evenly balanced that the loss of the members from the one County may overthrow the government's working majority. Moreover, the loss of the County in the local County election will probably mean the loss of that County's vote at the next presidential election, which may result in the entire dethronement of the party from power.

Wherefore it is obviously necessary that the party as a whole--in the nation and in Congress--should do all that it can to help and strengthen the party leaders in the County. This it does in contests believed to be critical, and particularly just in advance of a national election, by contributing to the local campaign funds when a purely County (State) election is in progress (with which, of course, the national party ought theoretically to have nothing to do) and in divers other ways; but especially by judicious use of the national patronage in making appointments to office when the party is in power.

The President--or let us say the Prime Minister--would rarely presume to appoint a postmaster at Winchester or Petersfield, or a collector of the port of Portsmouth or Southampton, without the advice and consent of the Hamps.h.i.+re Peers or Senators. And the advice of the Hamps.h.i.+re Peers, we may be sure, would be shaped in accordance with their personal political interests or by considerations of the welfare of the party in the County. They would not be likely to recommend for preferment either a member of the opposite party or a member of their own party who was a personal opponent. Moreover, besides the appointments in the County itself, there are many posts in the government offices in Whitehall, as well as a number of consulates and other more remote positions, to be filled. In spite of much that has been done to make the United States civil service independent of party politics, it remains that the bulk of these posts are necessarily still filled on recommendations made by the Congressmen or party leaders from the respective Counties, and again it is the good of the party inside those Counties which inspires those recommendations.

Thus we see how the national party when in power is able to fatten and strengthen the hands of the party organisations within the several Counties; and strengthen them it must, for if they lose control of the voters within their territory then is the national party itself ruined and dethroned.

And below the County party organisations, the County governments, are the organisations and governments in the cities, which again are split on precisely the same lines of cleavage. The City Council of Petersfield or Midhurst is divided into Conservatives and Liberals precisely as the Hamps.h.i.+re Legislature or the Parliament at Westminster. Jealousies often arise between the County organisations and those in the cities. The influence of Birmingham might well become overpowering in the Warwicks.h.i.+re Legislature, whereby it would be difficult for any but a resident of Birmingham to become Governor of the County or to be elected to the House of Lords. If the Birmingham munic.i.p.al organisation chanced to be controlled by a strong hand, it is not difficult to see how he might impose his will upon the County Legislature and the County party organisation, how he might claim more than his share of the sweets and spoils of office for his immediate friends and colleagues in the city, to the disgust of the other parts of the County. For the most part, however, such quarrels, between the city and County organisations of the same party, when they arise, are but lovers' quarrels, rarely pushed to the point of endangering the unity of the party in the State at election time.

But now if we remember what was said at first, that no candidates for Parliament or other elected functionaries are "sent down" by a central organisation, but all are "sent up" from the bottom, the impulse starting from small meetings in public-house parlours and the like (in the case of cities, meetings being held by "precincts" to elect delegates to a meeting of the "ward," which meeting again elects delegates to the meeting of the city), when we see how the city can coerce the County and the County sway the nation, then we have also no difficulty in seeing how it is, as has been said already, that the same power that appoints a janitor in a town-hall may dictate the nomination of a President. Even more than the County organisation is to the national party, is the city organisation to the County. The party, both as a national and as a County organisation, must fatten and strengthen the hands of the city machine. Thus comes it that such an alderman as the Delectable One is una.s.sailable. His power reaches far beyond the city. The party organisation in the city cannot dispense with him, because he can be relied upon always to carry his ward, and that ward may be necessary, not to the city machine only, but to the County and the nation.

It is hardly necessary to explain that in a general election in England the party which is returned to power need not necessarily have a majority of the votes throughout the country. A party may win ten seats by majorities of less than a hundred in each and lose one, being therein in a minority of a thousand; with the result that, with fewer votes than were cast for its opponents, it will have a clear majority of nine in the eleven seats. This is of course well understood.

But in an American general or presidential election, this anomaly is immensely aggravated by the fact that the electoral unit is not a city or a borough but a whole County or State. The various States have a voice in proportion to their population, but that vote is cast as a unit. A majority of ten votes in New York carries the entire thirty-seven votes of that State, while a majority of one thousand in Montana only counts three. There are forty-six States in the Republic, but the thirteen most populous possess more than half the votes, and a presidential candidate who received the votes of those thirteen, though each was won by only the narrowest majority, would be elected over an antagonist who carried the other thirty-three States, though in each of the thirty-three his majority might be overwhelming. Bearing this in mind, we see at once what immense importance may, in a doubtful election, attach to the control of a single populous State.

If in an English election, similarly conducted, the country was known to be so equally divided that the vote of Warwicks.h.i.+re, with, perhaps, twenty votes, would certainly decide the issue, the man who could control Warwicks.h.i.+re would practically control the country. We have seen further, however, that the man who controls Warwicks.h.i.+re will probably be the man who controls Birmingham. He may be the Mayor of Birmingham, or, more likely, the chairman (or "boss") of the munic.i.p.al machine who nominated and elected the Mayor and whose puppet the Mayor practically is. It then becomes evident that the man who can sway the politics of the nation is not merely the man who controls the single County of Warwicks.h.i.+re, but the man who, inside that County, controls the single city.

To go a step below that again, the control of the city may depend entirely on the control of a given ward in the city. That ward may contain a very large labouring vote, by reason of the existence of a number of big factories within its limits. Unless that labouring vote can be polled for the Liberal party, the ward will not go Liberal, and without it the city will be lost. The loss of the city involves the loss of the County, and the loss of the County means the loss of the nation.

The man therefore who by his personal influence, or by his leaders.h.i.+p in a perfectly organised party machine in one ward of Birmingham, can be relied on to call out the full Liberal strength in that one ward of a single city may be absolutely indispensable to the success of the party in the country as a whole. And it is even conceivable that that man again may be dependent on one of his own henchmen, the "Captain" of a single precinct in the ward or the man who has the ear and confidence of the hands in the largest of the factories.

Let me not be understood as saying that the personal influence of an individual may not be extremely powerful in an English election; and that power may rest, similarly, on his popularity in, and consequent ability to carry with him into the party fold, one particular district.

But there is not the same established form of County government on avowedly national lines, nor the same city government, as in America, through which that influence can make itself definitely and continuously felt.

We will state the situation in another way, which will make it clear to Englishmen from another point of view:

Let it be imagined that at the next general election in England, the decision is to be arrived at by a direct vote of the country as a whole for a Conservative or a Liberal Prime Minister. Instead of each County and borough electing its members of Parliament (they will do that only incidentally) the real struggle will take the form of a direct contest between two men. Each of the great parties will choose its own candidate, and the Conservatives have already nominated Mr. Balfour. It remains for the Liberals to name their man who is to run against Mr.

Balfour. The selection is to be made in a National Convention, to be held in Manchester, at which each County will be represented by a number of delegates proportioned to its population. Those delegates have already been elected in each County by local meetings within the Counties themselves, and in nearly every case the delegations so elected will come into the Convention Hall at Manchester prepared to vote and act as a unit. Whether that has been arrived at by choice of the individual Counties when they elected their delegations or whether the Convention itself has decided the matter by adopting the "unit rule"

does not matter. The fact is that each county will be compelled to vote in a body, _i. e._, that if London has forty votes and Kent twenty, those forty votes or those twenty will have to be cast solidly for some one man. They cannot be split into thirty votes for one man and ten for another; or into fifteen for one man and one each for five other men.

The Convention meets and it is plain from the first that the two strongest candidates are Lord Rosebery and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

There are scattering votes for Mr. Morley and Mr. Asquith, each of them getting the vote of one or more small Counties. But after the first ballot, which is always more or less preliminary, it is apparent that neither of those gentlemen can hope to be chosen, so the Counties which voted for them, having expressed their preference, proceed on the next ballot to give their suffrages either to Lord Rosebery or to Sir Henry.

The second ballot is completed. Every County has voted, with the result that (out of a total vote of 521, of which 261 are necessary for a choice) there are 248 votes for Lord Rosebery and 253 for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. But there is still one County which has not voted for either. Kent at both ballots has cast its twenty votes for Mr. Will Crooks. The reason why Kent does this is because the representatives from Woolwich and the neighbourhood are a numerical majority of the Kent delegation and those men are devoted to Mr. Crooks.

The third ballot produces the same result: Rosebery 248; Bannerman, 253; Crooks, 20. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh ballots show no change except that once in a while Rutland with three votes and Merioneth with four have amused themselves or caused a temporary flutter by swinging their votes from one side to the other or, perhaps, again casting them for Mr. Morley or Mr. Asquith. There is a deadlock. The Convention becomes impatient. The evening wears on and midnight arrives and still there is no change. Neither Lord Rosebery nor Sir Henry can get the extra dozen votes that are needed: still with regularity when the name of Kent is called the leader of the delegation rises and responds "Kent casts twenty votes for William Crooks."

At last in the small hours of the morning something happens. How it has been arrived at n.o.body seems to know; but when the roll is called for the thirteenth time, Norfolk, heretofore loyal to Sir Henry, suddenly votes for Crooks. Tremendous excitement follows. The word goes round that Campbell-Bannerman is beaten; his friends have given up and it is useless to vote for him any longer. Meanwhile in the course of the evening feeling between the supporters of Sir Henry and the Roseberyites has grown so bitter that whatever the deserting Bannermanites do, they will not help to elect Lord Rosebery. Here and there a Scotch County remains firm to its leader, but Oxford swings off to Mr. Morley; Suffolk, amid yells that make it difficult to tell who the vote is cast for, follows Norfolk and plumps for Crooks. Suss.e.x brings in Mr. Asquith again and Warwicks.h.i.+re goes for Crooks. Amid breathless silence the result of the thirteenth ballot is read out: Rosebery, 248; Crooks, 96; Morley, 72; Asquith, 50; Bannerman, 43; etc.

The fourteenth ballot begins. "Aberdeen!" calls the Chairman. The head of the Aberdeen delegation stands up in a suspense so tense that it almost hurts. "Aberdeen casts seventeen votes for Mr. Will Crooks!" In an instant the whole hall is filled with maniacs. County after County rushes to range itself on the winning side. Before the roll is more than half completed it is evident that Crooks must be chosen. Thereafter there is no dissentient voice. The ballot is interrupted by a voice which is known to belong to Lord Rosebery's personal representative. He moves that the nomination of Mr. Crooks be made unanimous. In a din wherein no voice can be heard the erstwhile leader of the Bannermanite forces is seen waving his arms and is known to be seconding the motion.

In ten minutes the hall is singing _G.o.d Save the King_ and Mr. Will Crooks is the chosen candidate of the Liberal party to oppose Mr.

Balfour at the coming election.

That is not materially different from what happened when Mr. Bryan was first nominated for the Presidency against Mr. McKinley--except that it did not take so long to accomplish. I have said that Mr. Bryan's nomination could have been defeated if a certain local delegation had been "attended to" in advance. What is to be noted is that Mr. Crooks has been nominated simply because he had a hold which could not be shaken on a small but compact body of men at Woolwich. It is true that it is not often that so dramatic a thing would happen as the nomination of Mr. Crooks himself but more frequently an arrangement--a "trade" or "deal"--would be entered into by which in consideration of the Crooks vote being thrown to one or other of the leading candidates, in the event of the latter's defeating Mr. Balfour and being elected to the Premiers.h.i.+p, certain political advantages, in the form of appointments to office and "patronage" generally, would accrue, not necessarily to Mr. Crooks himself, but to his "machine," the citizens of Woolwich, and the Liberal party in the County of Kent at large. We see here how the local "boss" may become all-powerful in national affairs (and this is of course only one of fifty ways) and how the interdependence of the party in the nation with the party organisation in the County or the munic.i.p.ality tends to the fattening of the latter and, it must be added, the debauching of all three.

At the last general election in England, in January, 1906, there is no doubt that the Conservative party owed the loss of a large number of seats merely to the fact that it had been in office for so long, without serious conflict, that the local party organisations had not merely grown rusty but were practically defunct. In the United States the same thing, in anything like the same degree, would be impossible, because between the periods of the general elections (which themselves come every four years) come the State and munic.i.p.al elections for the purposes of which the local party organisations are kept in continuous and more or less active existence. A State or a city may, of course, be so confirmedly Republican or Democratic that, even though elections be frequent, the ruling party organisation will become, in a measure, soft and careless, but it can never sink altogether out of fighting condition. When a general election comes round, each great party in the nation possesses--or organises for the occasion--a national committee as well as a national campaign organisation; but that committee and that national organisation co-operate with the local organisations in each State and city and it is the local organisations that really do the work--the same organisations as conduct the fight, in intermediate years, for the election of members to the State Legislature or of a mayor and aldermen. And each of those local organisations necessarily tends to come under the control of a recognised "boss."

Let us see another of the fifty ways in which, as has been said, one of these local bosses may be all-powerful in national affairs. A general election is approaching in Great Britain, and, as before, the Liberal party is in doubt whether to select as its candidate for the Premiers.h.i.+p Lord Rosebery or Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. The political complexion of almost every County is known and there is no chance of changing that complexion--a condition, be it said, which exists in America in the case of a large majority of the States. It is evident that at the coming election the vote is going to be extremely close, the most important of the "doubtful" Counties being Lanarks.h.i.+re, which has 25 votes; which 25 votes will of course be governed by the course of the working population of Glasgow. Whichever party can secure Lanarks.h.i.+re's vote will probably be successful; so that the destiny of the country really depends on the temper of the labouring men of Glasgow. Glasgow has, let us suppose, a strong and well-organised local Liberal "machine"

which carried the city at the last munic.i.p.al election, so that the mayor and a large majority of the aldermen of Glasgow are Liberals to-day; and the dictator or "boss" of this machine is (we are merely using a name for the sake of ill.u.s.tration) Lord Inverclyde. Lord Inverclyde does not believe that Lord Rosebery is the right man for the Premiers.h.i.+p. So he lets his views be known to the Liberal National Committee. "I am, as you know," he says, "a strong Liberal; but frankly I would rather see Mr.

Balfour made Prime Minister than Lord Rosebery. Glasgow will not vote for Lord Rosebery. The party can nominate any other man whom it pleases and we will elect him. I will undertake to carry Lanark for Sir Henry or Mr. Morley or anybody else; but I warn you that if Lord Rosebery is nominated, we will 'knife' him"--that being the euphonious phrase used to describe the operation when a party leader or party machine turns against any particular candidate nominated by the party.

What are the party leaders to do in such a case? To nominate Lord Rosebery after that warning (Lord Inverclyde is known to be a man of his word) will be merely to invite defeat at the election; consequently, though he may be the actual preference of a large majority of the Liberals of the country, Lord Rosebery does not get the nomination. It goes to some one who can carry Lanarks.h.i.+re,--some one, that is, who is pleasing to the boss of the local machine of Glasgow. It would be not unlikely that the national leaders might resent the dictation of Lord Inverclyde and might (but not until after the election was safely over) start intriguing in Glasgow politics to have him dethroned from the position of local "boss,"--might, in fact, begin "knifing" him in turn.

Whether they would succeed in their object before another general election supervened would depend on the security of his hold on the local Liberal organisation; and that would depend on his personal ability as a politician and--very largely--on his unscrupulousness. For it may, I think, be stated as an axiom that no man can long retain his hold as "boss" of the machine in a large city except by questionable methods,--methods which sometimes involve dishonesty. He must--no matter whether he likes it or not--use his patronage and his power to advance unworthy men; and he must in some measure show leniency to certain forms of lawlessness. Otherwise the influence of the saloons, gamblers, keepers of disorderly houses, and all the other non-law-abiding elements will be thrown against him with sufficient weight to work his downfall.

Unscrupulousness and friends.h.i.+p with wickedness in the slums of a city may thus be the direct road to influence in the councils of the national party. When it is remembered that not a few large cities, and therefore some States, are practically controlled, through the balance of power, by voters of an alien nationality, it is further plain how such an alien vote may become a serious factor in the politics of the nation. Thus is the German element very strong in Milwaukee, and the Scandinavian element in the towns and State of Minnesota. Thus the Irish influence has been almost paramount in New York, though now outnumbered by Germans, Italians, and others; and it is there, in New York, that the conditions which we have imagined in connection with Glasgow and Lord Inverclyde are actually being almost exactly repeated in American Democratic politics as often as a general election comes round.

You may frequently hear it said in America that "as goes New York, so goes the country"; which is to say that in a presidential election the party which carries New York will carry the nation. In theory this is not necessarily so, although it is evident that New York's thirty-six votes in the electoral college must be an important contribution to the support of a candidate. In practice it has proven itself a good rule, partly by reason of the importance of those thirty-six votes, but more, perhaps, because the popular impetus which sways one part of the country is likely to be felt in others--that, in fact, New York goes as the country goes.

But let us a.s.sume that the New York vote is really essential to the election of a candidate--that the vote in the country as a whole is evidently so evenly divided that whichever candidate can win New York must be elected the next President. Tammany Hall is a purely local organisation of the Democratic party in New York City. New York State, outside the city, is normally Republican, but many times the great Democratic majority in the Metropolitan district has swamped a Republican majority in the rest of the State. That Democratic vote in the Metropolitan district can only be properly "brought out" and controlled by Tammany; so that the cordial support of Tammany Hall, though, as has been said, it is in reality a strictly local organisation, and as such is probably the worst and most corrupt organisation (as it is also the best managed) that has been built up in the country, may be absolutely vital to the success of a Democratic presidential candidate. Tammany is practically an autocracy, the power of the Chief being almost absolute. England and English society have had some acquaintance with one Chief, and do not like him. But, as Chief of Tammany Hall, it is easy to see how even a coa.r.s.e-grained Irishman may become for a time influential in American national affairs--even to the dictating of a nominee for the Presidency.

I am not prepared to say that under the same conditions the same things could occur in England. What I am saying is that they do occur in the United States under conditions which do not exist in England; and, while it may be that British civic virtue would be proof against the manifold temptations of a similar political system, we have no sufficient data to justify us in being sure of it, nor is it wise or charitable to a.s.sume that because a certain number of American politicians yield to temptations which Englishmen have never experienced, therefore the people are of a less rigid virtue. Mr. Bryce has recorded his opinion that the ma.s.s of the public servants in America are no more corrupt than those in England. I prefer not to agree with him for, if it was true when he wrote it, the Americans to-day must be much the better, because since then there has unquestionably been an enormous improvement in the United States, while we have no evidence of a corresponding improvement in England. I believe, not only that many more public men are corrupt in America than in England, but that a larger proportion of the public men are corrupt, which, however, need not imply a lower standard of political incorruptibility: only that there are much greater opportunities of going wrong.

It is interesting to note, moreover, that in the public service the opportunities of malfeasance in public officers in Great Britain are increasing rapidly and, moreover, in precisely those lines wherein they have proved most demoralising in America. I have elsewhere recorded the apprehension with which many Englishmen cannot help regarding the closeness of the relations which are growing up between the national and local party organisations, but in addition to this the urban public bodies are coming to play a vastly larger role in the life of the people, while the multiplication of electric car lines and similar enterprises is exposing the members of those bodies to somewhat the same cla.s.s of untoward influence as has so often proven fatal to the civic virtue of similar bodies in America. Whether, as a result, any large number of cases of individual frailty have exposed themselves, probably only those immediately interested know; the exposure at least has not reached the general public.

It may not, however, be amiss to remember that a century and a half ago, when the conditions in the two countries were widely different from what they are to-day, Benjamin Franklin, coming to England, was shocked and astounded at the corruption then prevalent in English public life.

The procedure of an American presidential campaign has been sufficiently often described for the benefit of English readers. Suffice it to say that it is devastating, at times almost t.i.tanic. I have had some experience of the amenities of political campaigning in England, but the most bitterly contested fight in England never produces anything like the intensity of pa.s.sion that is let loose in the quadrennial upheavals in the United States.

It was my lot to be closely a.s.sociated with the conduct of a national campaign--as bitterly fought a campaign as the country has seen since the days of the war,--namely that of 1896 when Mr. Bryan was the candidate of the Free Silver Democracy. Early in the fight I began to receive abusive letters, for which a large and capacious drawer was provided in the office, into which they were tossed as they came, on the chance of their containing some reading which might be interesting when the trouble was over. As the fight waxed, they came by every post and in every form, ranging from mere incoherent personal abuse to threats of a.s.sa.s.sination. Hundreds of them were entirely insane: many hundred more the work, on the face of them, of anarchists pure and simple. A large proportion of them were written in red ink, and in many--very many--cases the pa.s.sions of the writers had got so far beyond their control that you could see where they had broken their pens in the futile effort to make written words curse harder than they would. The receptacle in which they were placed was officially known in the office as the Chamber of Horrors, but it was, I think, universally spoken of among the staff as the "h.e.l.l-box." Before the end of the campaign, capacious though it was, it was crowded to overflowing, and hardly a doc.u.ment that was not as venomous as human wrath could make it.

Incidentally I wish to say that never was a campaign--at least as far as my colleagues in our particular department were concerned--more purely in the interest of public morality, without any sort of selfish aims, and less deserving of abuse. What the correspondence of a presidential candidate himself must be in like circ.u.mstances, it is horrible to think.[281:1]