Belford's Magazine, Vol II, No. 10, March 1889

Portland Wentforth.

DOES THE HIGH TARIFF AFFECT OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM?

We had, before the war, the system of apprenticeship as practised to a great extent in Europe to-day. Its almost total extinction is laid at the door of concentrated, and still concentrating, capital, aided by improved machinery.

Some may argue that our improved machinery has the tendency to combine capital. This may be true in some measure; but, upon second thought, it will become clear to an impartial thinker that the protective tariff is the chief cause, as is evidenced by its baneful results – the trusts.

Under this new order, the shoemaker has no need of apprentices. The Northern shoe-factory, which employs cheap foreign labor at labor-saving machines, takes away his trade. He has, of course, a few customers for hand-made shoes, but his principal occupation consists in mending the poorly made shoes of the factory. He needs no apprentices for that, but, in order to make a comfortable living for his family and give his children the benefits of an education, he must charge big prices; and I venture to predict that the time is not far off when it will be cheaper to the consumer to buy a new pair of shoes from the factory than to have the old ones half-soled and otherwise repaired by the shoemaker of his town. This holds good in regard to other trades, and the question arises: What condition are we drifting into?

The indications are that we shall have in the near future a manufacturing class, a farming class, and a floating class. This floating class deserves our serious consideration. It consists of a large body of men and women, shiftlessly changing from the merchant class to the professions, and from the professions to the merchant class.

Our educational system helps to increase the confusion. Starting out with the intention of making the schools of the country the foundation of a substantial education in the elementary branches, our educators have allowed themselves to be carried away – through sheer enthusiasm, no doubt – from that simple and substantial basis of operation; and we have to-day, as the necessary result, the most complicated, absurd, and absolutely useless educational system in the world.

There is no branch of human knowledge that is not taught in the public schools of the country; and the most remarkable fact about it is that one solitary teacher is supposed to understand and to be able to teach this endless variety of branches.

For whose benefit is such an education intended? For the large floating population of the country; for the boys and girls whose parents have no positive intentions as to their children's future career.

In conversation with a public-school teacher I asked why he taught geometry and trigonometry in the school. "Well," he said, "it is of not much use, and takes valuable time from the rest of the scholars; but some of the patrons wish to have their children study it, because they might have future use for it."

When a few others wish Latin, German, or French taught, the teacher immediately undertakes it, while the great mass of the pupils are actually starving for the most elementary knowledge of the common-school branches.

We have, in consequence, a class, composed principally of young men, who have no education especially suited to any definite trade or profession. This class is constantly growing, to the detriment of the country. The trades are driven to the wall by combined capital, and there is literally nothing to do for many of our young men except to stand in a store as clerk or bookkeeper. Farmers' sons starting out in life with a shallow education received from a shallow system look with aversion upon the occupation of tiller of the soil, and, deluded by the education received at the country school-house into the belief that the world lays at their feet, go from one profession or trade to another, never satisfied, never of any account, and never successful.

If a freer trade has a tendency to break up trusts and combinations of capital, it will, in consequence, distribute the industries of the country more evenly among the people, and, by giving employment to our young men at home, will give them a definite aim in life and do away with the silly demand for a university education in a common public school.

Emil Ludwig Scharf.

MARCH 4th, 1889

Hail to the new! unto the winner hail!Hail to the rising, not the setting sun!So runs the world: success, however won,Dulleth, the while, his glory who doth fail.Yet, as thou puttest off thy proven mail,Strong soul that didst no issue ever shun,Or at entrenched greed's resentment quail!Hark to the swelling undertone – "Well done!"Unto the canker which thy country's lifeYearly doth make flow more and more impure,Thou wouldst, where needed most, have put the knife,And from its root the pest begun to cure.O brave chirurgeon! who shall end the strifeIt matters not – thy fame remaineth sure.Alfred Henry Peters.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

THE SALE OF THE PRESIDENCY

No better illustration of the power wielded by the press has been given, since the London Times took up the Crimean War and remodelled the allied armies, than that of the New York World in its assault on the corruptions of the ballot that robbed the people of the United States of their voted will at the late presidential election.

This monstrous crime against self-government would have faded from public memory, and lost its place in the annals of iniquity, but for the energy and enterprise of this journal, that sent an army of correspondents over the country and gathered the proofs of the open market in which was sold and bought the Presidency.

This fearful exposé of a burning shame was followed by messages from governors, and bills by legislatures, looking, not to the punishment of the wrong-doers, but to the enactment of preventive laws tending to the protection of the people in the future.

It is to be observed, however, that this potent power failed to bring on any investigations, any indictments, or a single effort to punish the guilty. This the World demanded, but this the World failed to obtain.

The reason for the impotent result in this one direction is easy to comprehend when we get at the facts underlying the corruption. Neither party was, or is, in a condition to demand an investigation, for the leaders of each are alike guilty. It is generally believed that money was corruptly used by both organizations, and that the Republicans, having the larger sum, won in the end. This is true, but it is only true in part. Honest investigation would bring out the startling fact, that the vast sums collected from millionaires, and the very significant amount assessed on office-holders, were for the one purpose of returning Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency and again putting the moneyed power of the country in the keeping of the Republican party.

This manner of operating by corrupt means has long been well known to the more observant. Corruption has no conscience, no patriotism, and no politics. All rascality rests on a purely business basis. When a merchant seeks a partner, he does not bother himself about that partner's religious belief or party predilections. When rogues wish to form a trust or ring, they in like manner consider only the capacity of their brother-rogues, and when politics is at all considered, it is because of the safety from investigation found in having all sides implicated. Thus, when the great Aqueduct steal of New York was organized, the managers were made up of both Democrats and Republicans. When, therefore, an investigation went far enough to develop two prominent Republicans added to the responsible commission, and one of those Republicans was called to the stand and asked how he came to accept such a position, he responded naïvely that he sought to secure some of the patronage of the public work for his own party.

Now, when we remember that President Cleveland, in the last hours of his illustrious administration, made a deadly assault on a system that oppressed the many for the benefit of a few, we get a clue to a mystery that has puzzled the masses. Vast sums were openly subscribed, and almost as openly used, in the purchase of votes to perpetuate the corruption. And we had developed two startling facts that go to show that our experiment of self-government is well-nigh a failure.

The first of these is that we have so cheapened the suffrage that we have an element in between the two parties large enough to decide a presidential election of what we call "floaters" – that is, men who stand upon the street-corners, and crop out in the rural regions, with their votes in hand, for sale to the highest bidders. The market price varies from five dollars to a hundred, as the demand may rule.

The second fact teaches that the election through States facilitates this infamous abuse. We find that while President Cleveland won in the popular vote by nearly a hundred thousand majority, he lost the presidency. Through the electoral system we have developed two pivotal States, and the market thus narrowed makes the corruption possible.

It is quite evident that we cannot narrow the suffrage, but it is possible to widen the vote; and if the patriotic people of the United States care to sustain the great republic, and give to their children the precious possession of a constitutional government, based on an equality of rights before the law, no time should be lost in wiping out an electoral system that has not only failed of its purpose, but is a source of peril to the government.

It is said of a distinguished politician of Pennsylvania that when called on to contribute money for the purpose of carrying a State election, he, refusing, said, "What's the use of wasting money on the people in an election when you can purchase the legislature with one-fourth the money?" Now, immense as are the sums gotten through monopoly and unjust taxation, they are not sufficient to purchase votes throughout the entire country, to say nothing of the danger attending such an attempt.

We learn this from Col. Dudley's famous, or rather infamous, letter of instruction to his subordinates. He wanted the floaters classed in blocks of five. This, not because the floaters were so numerous as to require such organized handling, but because it was a hazardous venture, and agents willing to transact the business were scarce. That they were found in deacons, class-leaders, bankers, and Sunday-school teachers only shows the desperate condition to which the moneyed power was reduced in its effort to secure again the control of our government.

Had the Democracy planted itself firmly upon honest ground and fought this corruption because it was corrupt and not from a fever of excitement to win at all hazards, it might have been defeated – probably would have been. But in that defeat it would have held a position that would now enable it to investigate, indict, and punish. As it is, we have a great outcry and no efficient work. Col. Dudley goes acquit of all save public condemnation, not because of any difficulty attending a legal condemnation, but because his accusers cannot enter court with clean hands.

This is an ugly statement to make; but for the sake of the political association with which we sympathize, and in whose cause, as developed in the late election, we are deeply interested, we feel it our duty to assert the truth in the plainest terms. The Democracy should remember that in this corrupt game they must of necessity be the losers. The corruption fund is and must be with their opponents. The gist of the contention lies in the fact that the Democracy seek to arrest a robbery that has already made their opponents rich, and the swag thus obtained affords the means through which it may be held. To enter such an arena is to enter it unarmed.

Senator Plumb, when he made the assertion, subsequently published by authority, that the only class really benefited by our system of extortion miscalled protection should have "the fat fried out of it" to carry on the election, unintentionally uttered a truth we cannot ignore. This again was supplemented by Senator Ingalls's instruction to his State delegation at Chicago to nominate for the Vice-Presidency "some fellow like Phelps who can tap Wall Street." And the evidence closes with Col. Dudley's direction to organize "the floaters in blocks of five."

These are noted and recognized leaders of the Republican party. Senators Plumb and Ingalls are not only prominent as such, but are men of brain and culture. Col. Dudley is known to the country as a prominent worker in the cause of the moneyed power. Now, while we might hesitate to take the word of any one of these gentlemen when advocating any measure of importance to their party, we are bound to accept all they assert against themselves, in accordance with well-recognized principles of evidence.

Their admissions are fatal to their party, as their practice, if continued, will prove fatal to the Republic. We have some twenty-two State legislatures laboring to so amend the machinery of elections as to make this purchase of votes difficult, if not impossible. In this good work the Democracy should be the zealous leaders, not only because it is reform, but because it is the salvation of the party.

If this corruption found in the mere purchase of votes ended with that foul practice we might hope for something; but back of that, hid in the darkness, lies the ugly, snaky form of treachery. The money subscribed by millionaires is not always used in the camp of the party in whose behalf it was contributed. So long as rogues are countenanced in one direction they will be found in others. The startling fact that we cannot have investigations for fear of uncovering our own people is supplemented by another no less startling – that such investigation would expose not only bribe-takers but traitors. We are not asserting this without due consideration, and we give to print only what is known by the more shrewd and observant in our own midst.

The proof of this is not necessary. The knowledge that corruption did exist carries with it assurance that it extended in such directions as the wrong-doers found most efficient. When that sturdy old corruptionist, Oakes Ames, was called upon to account for the stock of the Crédit Mobilier with which he had been intrusted, he replied that he had placed it "where it would do the most good," and his keen, incisive remark has passed into a popular proverb. The wretched, degraded creature who sells his vote parts with an infinitesimal bit of power, and he is a saint and a gentleman by the side of the man who, trusted by his party, betrays that trust for a moneyed consideration. However, this carries us beyond our subject.

The truest and best reform that can be attained is the most radical, and that is, as we have said, to elect the President by a direct vote of the people, and do away with an electoral system that survived its usefulness in the death of George Washington. The next best is to secure the secrecy of the ballot. Anything short of this is vain. When we have so arranged the machine that the bribe-taker cannot make open delivery of the stolen goods, we have driven the bribe-giver to accepting the word of a wretch whose oath would be worthless.

In view of the peril in which we find ourselves, with the very foundations taken from under the tottering political fabric known as the Great Republic, the anxiety manifested by our law-makers lest some citizen may be deprived of his vote in this effort to purify the polls would be ludicrous were it not that the subject is of so serious a nature. The very ground is sliding from under us, and these Solons are concerned as to the shoes we may be deprived of in our effort at escape. Indeed, if to perfect the reform it became necessary not only to deprive a few citizens of the suffrage, but to hang Messrs. Plumb, Ingalls, and Dudley, shocking as the sacrifice would be to us, we should say, like a Roman father, let them hang. Indeed, undying fame hereafter would proclaim that in their deaths they had done their country some service.

VACANT PEWS AND WORRIED PULPITS

The homes, so called, of our larger cities are in a majority of cases without comfort, and in nearly all instances without refinement. The class upon which we once so prided ourselves, made up of families possessed of a competence, and enabled through a reasonable income from steady work to have about their homes some comfort and a few luxuries, is rapidly disappearing. We have left us two classes only, made up of the very rich and the poor. The merchant, the mechanic, and even the common laborer, who once could boast of a humble home of his own, and enough steady employment to make that home comfortable, is rarely met with. We believe indeed that he exists only in the imagination of Senator Edmunds. Well-authenticated statistics inform us that we have a larger percentage of tenantry to our population than any people on the face of the earth. This not only includes our great commercial, mining, and manufacturing centres, but the rural regions as well. We learn that, throughout the agricultural regions, while the farms lessen in number, the farmers increase.

We know what this means. We recognize at a glance that the growth of our country in national wealth, which is claimed to be amazing, is not a healthy growth. For that is not healthy which gives prosperity to a few and poverty to the masses.

This has been so long and so generally recognized that it has come to be commonplace, and people weary of its reiteration. We indulge in this weariness for the purpose of calling attention to a consequence that is not so familiar.

It is remarked by observant lookers-on from abroad that our laboring classes are thoroughly ignorant of art, and take no pleasure in contemplating works of art, as do the like classes in the towns of Europe. The reason given for this is that we have no specimens in our highways, and few in galleries. The latter are closed against the laboring classes on the only day a laborer can have to visit them, and that is Sunday.

The wrong done our people by this can scarcely be overestimated. A taste for art can generally be cultivated. It is quite impossible to educate a people in science and literature, for this depends on intellectual faculties that our heavenly Father, from a wise purpose to us unknown, has been very sparing in distributing. But almost every man is capable of being taught to admire, if not love, the beautiful in art. What an element in the way of social improvement or progress this cultivated taste is we all recognize, and what happens to a race that neglects it we all know.

Now, it is possible for a people to possess the highest appreciation of, and admiration for, art and yet be semi-barbarous, for the Christian element is necessary to bring about real civilization; but it is quite impossible for a race to be without some cultivation in the way of art and be civilized at all.

It is not strange, to a thoughtful observer, to note that as a nation we are on the down-grade. Such an observer from abroad cannot cross Broadway, for example, without learning that life and limb are in peril from a community that has more law and less order than any people the world over. He is prepared to learn then that our galleries of art – such as exist – are closed against the poor, and he is ready to receive without wonder the further fact that our churches also are closed against the poor.

It is this last truth that is somewhat new in the way of being recognized, although quite old as a matter of fact.

At a convocation of Protestant ministers held at Chickering Hall last November, on behalf of the Protestant community of New York, the following was officially stated as to the religious condition of the city:

"The population of New York City has for years been steadily and rapidly increasing, while at the same time the number of churches has been relatively decreasing. In 1840 there was one Protestant church to every 2,400 people; in 1880, one to 3,000; and in 1887, one to 4,000."

Now, to this startling admission could have been added another, no less deplorable, and that is that the attendance has decreased more rapidly than the churches, and, in such as now remain open a seventh part of the time, there is an exhibit of empty seats quite depressing to the minister. If we consider the Protestant population only, not one-tenth are church attendants – and not a tenth of these are true believers.

The reason for this deplorable condition was much discussed by the good men making up the clerical convention, and the prevailing opinion seemed to be, as gathered from the utterances, that this disheartening result came from the active interference of the Catholic clergy – or papists, as our friends termed them.

There was much truth in this. These zealous "papists" are certainly making great inroads upon our population; but, admitting that they take large numbers from the Protestant churches, there yet remains a vast population of non-going church people that the so-called papists have not influenced, nor indeed as yet approached. What then is the cause of this irreligious condition?

We believe that we can help our clerical friends to a solution of this religious mystery. It comes from a lack of consideration for the masses they seek to instruct. There is a want of sympathy for the poor, that not only shuts the galleries of art from the laboring classes, but closes the Protestant churches also.

These structures, while scarcely to be classed as works of art, – for they are carefully divested of all that appeals to good taste, – are yet luxurious affairs at which the rich and well-born, in purple and fine linen, are expected to attend. They are more social than religious affairs, and there is no place for the ragged, even if such appeared from a public bath, duly cleansed of their offensive dirt. To make this exclusiveness complete, the churches are filled with pews that, like boxes at the opera, are the property of subscribers able to pay for such luxuries. True, certain pews are reserved as free seats for the poor; but the class sought thus to be accommodated are averse to being put in their poverty on exhibition, as it were, even for the luxury of hearing a solemn-toned clergyman whose theological gymnastics are as much beyond the comprehension of the hearers as they are beyond that of the reverend orator himself.

To realize our condition in this respect, let our reader imagine, if he can, our blessed Saviour and his apostles entering bodily, to-day, one of these edifices built to His worship. Weary and travel-stained, clad in the coarsest of garments, the procession would scarcely start along the dim-lit aisle before that austere creation of Nature in one of her most economical moods, the sexton, would hurry forward to repel further invasion of that most respectable sanctuary of God. Our Saviour would be informed that somewhere in the outlying spaces of poverty-stricken regions there was a mission-house suitable for such as He.

We must not be understood as intimating, let alone asseverating, aught against this form of Christianity. It is so much better than none that we feel kindly toward it. The religious evolution that develops a respectable sort of religious purity, that builds a marble pulpit and velvet-cushioned pews, is all well enough if it quiets the conscience and soothes with trust the death-bed of even a Dives. We regard a Salvation Army, that makes a burlesque of religion as it goes shouting with its toot-horns and stringed instruments, as to be tolerated, because it is better than the Bob Ingersolls. We only seek to inform the well-meaning teachers of the religion of to-day why it is they preach to empty pews.

Few of us are aware of what we are doing when we close our galleries and churches, and open our saloons to the poor. This last, so far, has proved impossible. But let our hot gospellers, whose creed is based on "Be-it-enacted," visit any one of the poor abodes of the laborers denied admission to innocent places of amusement on the only holiday they have for such recreation. Such investigator will descend to a subterranean excavation dug in the sewer-gas-filtered earth, where the walls sweat disease and death. These are homes for humanity. Or he will ascend rotten stairways to crowded rooms, heated to suffocation by pestilent air poisoned by over-used breath from men, women, and children, packed in regardless of health, comfort, and decency. These are the so-called homes of thousands and thousands: and the wonder is, not that they die, but that they live. We send millions of money with missionaries to foreign shores: to our own flesh and blood we send – the police. Loving care and patient help are bestowed on distant pagans: poor-houses, prisons, and wrath are the fate awarded to our brothers at home.