Belford's Magazine, Vol 2, December 1888

We trust our readers will be patient with us. We know that we are touching on a tender subject. There is a religious feeling injected into the craze that makes many men wild and unreasonable the moment the system is criticised. We appreciate and partake of the sentiment born in us through many generations of a struggle against the tyranny ever found in a union of Church and State. Our blessed Saviour saw this when He laid down that line of demarcation between the two when he said: "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; and to God the things that are God's." We not only say that we are opposed to governmental interference with religion, but we go a step farther, and, to make the line between Church and State yet more distinct, we assert that government has nothing to do with the morals of its people. Government is an expression of justice, as seen and felt in restraining through punishment the overt act of injustice. Morality and religion are so interwoven that they cannot well be separated, and the man who claims the political machine to be a great moral engine gives away all that our Christ commanded and our patriotic fathers sought to establish in framing our Constitution.

We hold that the morality of a people, like their religion, may be safely left to the Church and the home. When, therefore, the socialistic belief that the child belongs to the State and not to the parent prevails, not only the barriers but the very foundations of our social and political existence are broken down and in a fair way to be destroyed.

When we assert that the State rests upon the home, we say that which all men save communists heartily indorse. Now, the home is founded mainly on the mother's love. It is the strongest feeling given to animated life. We share it with the brute. It is the law of our being, and the source of all that is good. From the mother's care and training come our physical and moral health. This is not sentiment, it is solid fact. It is not that poets have sung and sages taught this great truth, but there is not a reader of this who cannot trace back to his early home and his mother's love not only all that has held him or her to moral conduct, but much that makes life worth living. This, that makes home what it is or should be, cannot be replaced by the State. The great infidel Robert Ingersoll retains his hold on certain thoughtless classes, not by his wit, which is keen, nor his eloquence, which is unquestioned, but because he preaches a sort of religion of home, and claims to be the only man, par excellence, who loves his wife and children.

The writer of this, when a judge, was remonstrated with for giving a child to a mother whom he had divorced from her husband on the ground of her infidelity. He made reply that the wife might be a bad woman and yet a good mother. Certainly there was no one to take her place. The court could not give the custody of the child to a man who thought so little of its welfare as to come into court and ask for a decree of divorce. The law had to be obeyed, and the divorce granted; but the custody of the child was left to the discretion of the court, and the court considered it merciful to leave the child with the mother rather than give it to a father who, in asking for a divorce, served notice that he would marry again and give this unfortunate to the care of a stepmother, to torture it with the taint of its origin, and a conflict with the natural affection for the newly found household and offspring.

The New England system of common schools recognizes the communistic theory of right, in the State, to the child. It reduces this theory to practice by supplanting the parent by the pedagogue. It teaches that to instruct the child is to make it moral, and its instruction means, as we have said, an abnormal development of the memory. A belief in this has come to be a popular fetish. The man who ventures to comment on it, or offers to amend or improve it, is hooted down as an enemy to his country and an infidel to its perfection. Pulpits resound with thanks to God for the blessings of free education, the press is filled with praise, while on the stump eloquent orators assure applauding crowds that our common-school system is the corner-stone of not only the great Republic, but of our social existence.

And yet, where are we? From all this senseless noise let us turn to the actual situation and consult the cold, naked facts. The increase of crime and insanity in the United States within the last half-century is something appalling. They have not only kept pace with our much-vaunted prosperity, but have been, and are, forging ahead at a rate that fills all thoughtful minds with alarm.

We cannot extend our space and burthen our brief comment with the statistics necessary to prove this fact, already patent to the more intelligent. Let the reader consult them for himself. He will find that the increase of criminals and the increase of insanity, set forth in cold figures, are not to be disputed or misunderstood. But it does not follow that these grave evils are to be laid to the communism of the New England common-school system. Perhaps not; but how much has this wonderful system done to arrest those evils? According to preachers, poets, editors, and stump orators, we are safe in leaving all to its care and keeping. It has certainly accomplished little in behalf of the Republic. Penitentiaries and asylums for the insane are increasing at a fearful rate; divorces follow fast upon the heels of marriage; and it may safely be said that not a single trust-fund has been left untouched by the hand of fraud throughout the entire country.

A further investigation, however, will lead us to yet another conclusion. The communism of the common school accompanies the evils. In those parts of our country where it is most rigidly enforced crime and madness have increased. In those sections yet new to the system these ills are less; and as there must be a cause for the difference, is it not safe to attribute it to this usurpation of the State, this insidious assault on the parent, and through both a weakening of religious faith and moral conduct?

We are well aware that, in the bigotry of belief that hedges about this system, there is no toleration for comment or criticism, and no room for amendment. To add to this, immense sums of money are involved; for while the State is keenly alive to the education of the people, and furnishes, with the greatest liberality, school-houses and pedagogues, it is strangely oblivious to the demand for books and stationery. In this supply lies two-thirds of the vociferous praise and vindictive support of the system. As the late Colonel Sellers was wont to say, "There's millions in it."

ABOUT THE BALLOT

We have a growing number of earnest reformers who seek to better the machinery of elections by throwing about the ballot-box certain precautions, legally enacted, that will make the purchase of votes and the intimidation of voters more difficult. The trouble, however, is not in the vote, but the voter. If the one is corrupt, there is no legal process known to law-makers that will purify the other. If a man holds his vote in the light of property and knows of a purchaser possessed of means, it is extremely difficult to keep the parties apart or prevent the sale.

This, however, does not apply to that well-known evil of undue influence on the part of party leaders, or "strikers," as they are called. Those partisans are reinforced by men who have others in their employ dependent on such employers for a living, and of course possessed of an influence calculated to control the vote of the dependent, whether such voting is in accordance with the wishes or conscience of the voter or not.

We know, for example, that in the late canvass every capitalist with his investment depending for its profit on the success of the Republicans took pains to inform his workmen that unless Harrison were elected the works could not continue, and they, the laborers, would be discharged and left to starve. He was animated in this only by the highest philanthropic motives, not by any wish to influence the votes of his laborers.

Now, the operatives were intelligent enough to laugh at this, but they were well aware of what he meant, and that was to inform them of his wishes; and as he had it in his power to know how each voted, it was as much as each man's place was worth to vote the Democratic ticket. That there might be no mistake about this, the few who ventured to disobey this champion boss were soon disposed of. It is scarcely necessary to say that the smoke continued to pour up and out of the chimneys until an unfortunate wheat deal at Chicago sent the head centre of the attempted corner to the penitentiary, and made this capitalist who thus sought to intimidate his laborers quite fit for the same locality.

If some process of voting, whether Australian or not, could be devised to end this "bulldozing," as it is popularly called, it would be an excellent reform. It would also go far towards weakening the blind adhesion to political organizations. Many men are held to this more by association and that lack of independence necessary to a severance of old ties. This denies the voter the right to scratch his ticket when he finds a name on it that he knows to be that of a man he cannot approve and ought not to vote for. To keep abreast of his party he must vote "the ticket, the whole ticket, and nothing but the ticket." The leaders and their lieutenants, as the machine stands, have it in their power to spot and expose anyone venturing to break over the line and obey his own will.

This is the power, well recognized, which makes the nominating caucus the government. The right to vote carries with it to each voter a right to a candidate of his own selection. As the matter stands, in fact, he comes to the polls and has presented to him generally two tickets. It is claimed that he can vote one or the other, or, as it is called, vote in the air. The fact is he has no such choice. The despotic power of party discipline holds him firmly to the ticket his party has put in nomination. Our ballot, that is claimed to be secret, is open as the day. Every vote is counted and every voter known, and to make assurance doubly sure the polls are guarded by both parties, and the noble citizen runs the gauntlet through double lines of detestable township or ward politicians, potent for mischief in their sneers and jeers, and, if need be, ready with dirty fists or clubs, sometimes revolvers, to back the edict of the party.

Through this process a majority is supposed to govern. The practical fact is that a small minority, and that made up of the worst element, holds sway. The nominating caucus is composed of men who work for pay, and put in nomination the political aspirants corrupt enough to purchase their positions. The more decent class of our citizens avoid the primaries. They well know that to control them means a corrupt use of money, or a fight wherein victory is as fatal as defeat. In the rural districts the farmer is called to leave his plough and ride from one to three miles, and lose a day's work, for the privilege of being controlled by a small political bunco-steerer to the support of some aspirant to office who has the fellow in his pay. If the farmer differs from Mary's little lamb in not being white as snow, he resembles that poetic pet in his amiable docility. The caucus is composed of a mere corporal's guard from the army of voters. In the towns and cities the element is so brutal, impudent, and active that decency shrinks from a mere contact, let alone a contest in which decency will have its hat mashed over its eyes, its nose bloodied, and its body bruised. In ward and township these able manipulators are not the majority, as we have said, and yet they rule with a despotic brutality that makes the kingdom of Dahomey a liberal government in comparison.

Now, as we have said, if some legalized process could be devised through which the ballot could be made safe and secret, a deadly blow would be given to the caucus. As it is, the managers buy a few and intimidate the many. The basis of such reform, however, rests on the entire machine being paid for by the government. Tickets should be printed and furnished free on the demand of any ten men claiming to be a party with candidates to be voted for. Economy in this direction has costly results. On the plea of legitimate expenditures large sums are collected, and the people debauched. Any use of money other than that by the government should not only work a forfeiture of office, but open the penitentiary to the voter.

The truth is, however, that to make this reform effectual it must be thorough and radical. The one great evil in our way is in our frequent elections. The insane effort to apply the ballot to every office has so multiplied elections that it is impossible for a man to give attention to one-half, and follow his business so as to support his family. The average citizen is forced to leave the filling of office to the professionals, vulgarly called "bummers" in town, and "gutter-snipes" in the country. We have not only cheapened the suffrage and thereby cheapened office for the representative who represents, but we have degraded the civil service until it is more of a disgrace than an honor to be an official.

That sort of reform which compromises with wrong is worse than none. To be effective, reform must be radical. Chucking a boulder in a rut of a bad road makes the highway the more impassable. The rut itself must be eliminated before repairs can be said to have a foundation.

PASSING EVENTS

The political battle has been fought. We can look calmly over the field, estimate the causes that led to the result, and to some extent forecast the future. The Republican party had no uncertain triumph. Since the day when Greeley was defeated by Grant there has been no such overwhelming majority in the Electoral College for a Republican candidate. Even without the vote of New York General Harrison would have been elected. The line of the "solid South" has been broken by West Virginia joining the Republican column, and Delaware for the first time in her history elects a Republican legislature. Both Houses of Congress will undoubtedly be Republican, so that there can be no shifting of responsibility for bad legislation. The defeat of the Democrats is clear, clean-cut, decisive.

It looks at first blush a temporary triumph for protection as against free trade. There is no mistaking the fact that the country in a four months' campaign could not be educated to give up ideas which had been advanced by leading statesmen of both parties for the past twenty years, and which met but very feeble protests from true Democrats. The protection fetich has been shattered, but not overturned from its shrine. The result shows the folly of half-hearted campaigns. Even the very authors of the Mills bill, filled with fearful tales of the New York workingman's aversion to free trade, when they came to the metropolis, instead of avowing that they proposed gradually to remove all restrictions upon our commerce with the world, began to apologize for their position, and to protest that they were not engaged in a free-trade campaign. Mr. Cleveland could not have been worse beaten had the fight been openly made for the abolition of all duties whatsoever and the closing of every custom-house. But those who think with the New York Sun that we have had the last of an "educational campaign" very much deceive themselves. What could not be done in four months may be achieved in four years. The free-trade fight is on, and it is not at all impossible that Grover Cleveland may yet be the standard-bearer in a victorious campaign for human rights against combined monopolies. Other reasons for the Democratic defeat were: the greed of local halls for petty patronage, divisions among the Democrats of New York City over the mayoralty, jealousies of rival bosses in King's County, the free use of money by the Republicans, especially in Indiana, and the superior management of the Republican leaders, who were at least honestly fighting for what they believed in.

The longest session Congress ever held closed on October 20th, having lasted 321 days. Its most interesting features were the tariff discussion and the unparalleled deadlock in the consideration of the direct-tax bill. With the short session which begins on December 4th the present Democratic ascendancy will come to an end, as the Republicans will have a good working majority of at least thirteen in the Fifty-first Congress.

The diplomatic world is laughing at Lord Sackville for his foolishness in falling into a Republican trap, and his summary dismissal by President Cleveland. In answer to an unknown correspondent in California, the English minister wrote expressing his views as to the pending Presidential election – a thing in violation of all diplomatic custom. The letter was published and used as a campaign document. President Cleveland at once demanded his recall, and Lord Salisbury not acting with sufficient promptness, the unlucky minister was given his passport on October 30th.

England and Germany are contending for supremacy in East Africa, the latter by bombarding the natives of Zanzibar into submission, and the former by the peaceful methods of trade. Portugal is to join England and Germany in a naval blockade of Zanzibar to suppress slave-dealing, and the Pope has sent $60,000 to Cardinal Lavigerie for the same purpose. The Cardinal is raising a volunteer corps with which to fight the slave-dealers of Central Africa. The Congo Free State, the only absolute free-trade country in all the world, is being rapidly opened. The first section of the trans-African railway, from St. Paul de Loanda to Ambaca, has been completed. Stanley has been heard from indirectly, but the news is eleven months old and his present position is unknown.

Russia came near losing her ruler in a railway accident not far from Tiflis on October 29th. As the Czar and Czarina were returning from the Caspian to the Black Sea, the train left the rails and was wrecked. Twenty-one persons were killed and thirty-seven injured, but the Czar escaped with a slight injury to his foot. Balkan questions still cloud the political horizon. Austria is contemplating the occupation of Servia, a step which would be followed immediately by Russia occupying Bulgaria. King Milan has got his divorce from Queen Natalie. He pointed out to the Metropolitan of the Servian Church that the sovereign of course was superior to all law in such little matters as marriage-ties, and the Metropolitan obediently issued a decree granting the divorce. Queen Natalie has appealed to the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. Meanwhile Roumania is trying an experiment in self-government, having introduced a system of elections for members of a Chamber of Deputies, for which all citizens paying taxes are electors.

Emperor William has returned from his junketing tour. His reception by the Italian people was enthusiastic, but his interview with the Pope was hardly a love-feast. Pope and Kaiser met face to face for the first time since Henry IV. of Germany did penance at Canossa before Gregory Hildebrand in 1077. A curious incident that happened just after the Emperor's visit was the breaking out of a fire in a wing of the Quirinal, in which the pontifical escutcheon affixed to the palace was burned. Another historical event occurred on October 17th, when Hamburg joined the German customs union, giving up its privileges as a free port. Bismarck's policy proved stronger than that of the free-traders in the Reichstag, and German custom-houses now cast their shadows on the waters of the Elbe.

In France the government proposals for a revision of the constitution seem to be in a fair way towards adoption. They include a fixed term for the ministers and curtailment of the Senate's powers. The senators oppose the plan, not caring to be "revised" out of their privileges. The Haytien republic has nearly finished its revolution. General Salomon, the exiled president, died in Paris on October 19th, and General Télémaque was killed in an attack on Port au Prince. The only other candidate for the presidency, General François Denys Légitime, was elected by the National Assembly on October 17th. The efforts of Manitoba to reach a foreign market without being subjected to the odious monopoly of the Canadian Pacific Railway may have serious consequences. The Province is building a railway to connect with the American lines, and the Canadian Pacific refuses to let them cross their tracks. Both sides threaten to fight.

Business is quiet but steady. Wall Street sharpers are anticipating a boom, as it is not expected that the new administration will do anything to hurt the monopolies. The shares of those trusts listed on the New York Stock Exchange – American Cotton Oil trust and Chicago Gas trust – have advanced in price. "Old Hutch" of Chicago is said to be engineering a corner in December wheat and January pork. Mr. John Taylor, of Chicago, who lost his fortune in "Old Hutch's" last corner, shot himself in a railway train while travelling from Paris to Marseilles, making the second suicidal crime attributable to this commercial freebooter. The investigation of the will of Mrs. Stewart, who was left a fortune of twenty-five million dollars by her husband, and died ten years afterward in debt over one million to her friend, ex-Judge Hilton, who managed her estate, is developing a remarkable system of book-keeping. All her investments ceased to pay, and her adviser even charged interest for her husband's funeral expenses. The directors of the Richmond Terminal Company have obtained control of the Georgia Central Railroad, with seven thousand miles of track and $9,000,000 gross earnings, and its ocean steamship line of ten steamers, plying between Savannah, Baltimore, New York, and Boston. Half the South is thus put under one gigantic railroad monopoly.

London has been startled by another horrible murder in Whitechapel, the ninth committed by an unknown assassin. All the victims have been unfortunate women of the streets, and all have been horribly butchered. The criminal record is enlarged by the flight of City Treasurer Thomas Axworthy of Cleveland, Ohio, who was nearly a million dollars short in his accounts, and whose defalcation temporarily bankrupted the city.

An accident which proves the value of water-tight compartments occurred on November 10th near Sandy Hook. The Umbria had just begun her voyage to Queenstown when she ran across the freight steamer Iberia during a fog, cutting her in two. Both parts of the Iberia floated away and kept above water for hours, allowing the rescue of all hands. Not so lucky was the Russian steamer Archangel, which collided with the Glasgow steamer Neptune in Christiana Bay on October 19th, losing her captain and seventeen of the crew. Another steamer disaster was the burning of the Ville de Calais, owing to an explosion of petroleum gas while in port at Calais. Over a dozen lives were lost. As an excursion train was returning from the fêtes at Naples, a landslide occurred, crushing the train, and killing ninety persons and wounding seventy. By an explosion in a mine at Frontenac, Kansas, one hundred and eighty persons were buried, not more than fifty of whom were taken out alive. A similar explosion occurred in the Campagnac coal-pit, Aveyron, France, in which eighty miners were killed. Yellow fever still lingers in Florida. It has claimed 384 victims out of a total of 4,469 cases up to November 10th.

The theatrical season thus far is somewhat dull. Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard" was brought out at the New York Casino about a week after its production in London, and met with no better success. The lively sparkle of "Pinafore" and "Patience" is missing. London has a new playhouse, the Shaftesbury Theatre, opened on October 20th with "As You Like It." New-Yorkers feel a pardonable pride in the success of the "Giants" in obtaining the League baseball championship. Starting third in the race, they obtained first place in the last week in July and held it until the end. Sporting men have been wondering at the remarkable jump of Steve Brodie from the Poughkeepsie bridge into the Hudson River, a distance of 212 feet. Mr. Richard K. Fox, by an offer of $500 and a gold medal, incited this foolhardy attempt, but the boy escaped with slight injuries. Two other Foxes, the famous sisters who forty years ago founded spiritualism, have created a sensation by telling how they humbugged people into believing what they now style a monstrous imposition. An attraction for lovers of art have been the paintings of Vasili Verestchagin, the Russian artist, which are being exhibited in New York. Critics pronounce them marvels of strength in delineation, but a little too realistic for the most refined taste.