III. THE POLITICAL MACHINE

In an analysis of American social and political institutions the political machine cannot be overlooked. Most Americans would doubtless say that if anything threatens our free institutions, it is the system of political bosses with their "organizations," which are so well known among us. Foreign observers of great wisdom entertain similar opinions. The ability to deal with these "machines" will, it is supposed, determine the ultimate success or failure of democracy. Mr. Bryce, in "The American Commonwealth," devotes only three chapters to our courts, and they are merely descriptive of their workings; while on the subject of political machines and allied topics he devotes between thirty and forty chapters. Many of his criticisms of the political rings are very severe. Agreeing as I do with substantially all that Mr. Bryce says in detail on these subjects, I contend that the corruption of ring politics is local, not general; that it is an ulcer on the body politic, but not a constitutional disease.

The traditional attitude of the American mind towards political machines is one of hostility, and with local exceptions a political leader, unless he is very discreet, gets the name of "boss" when he is far from exercising the prerogatives. New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and St. Louis have been in the past the worst ring-ridden cities in the United States, and yet in these cities the political "bosses" have had to fight for their existence.

In most of the other parts of the United States the political organization is a blessing and not a curse. These organizations are mainly instrumental in making a campaign of education out of each election period. The great public meetings and the discussion of the issues of the day, both on the public platform and in the press, constitute an educative feature of our system of political economy the importance of which cannot be overestimated. The great mass of the people are taught to think along political lines; citizens become acquainted with their officials, and the latter learn to keep in close touch with the public sentiment; practice in the art of oratory is given to thousands of young men; a healthy public spirit is fostered, and in these ways genuine Democratic government made possible.

While there is corruption in many political machines in the United States, every such organization contains the elements within itself which must inevitably destroy corruption. Even the Tammany organization contains thousands of the best men of America, and the peculations of its leaders, though scandalous, are not so bad now as they were a decade ago. I would therefore liken the corrupt political machine to a local ulcer, of the surface rather than constitutional. The judiciary, on the other hand, is the heart of the body politic. If the heart be diseased or rotten, death is inevitable.

While the wrongs of the political combines are on the surface, apparent to everybody and relatively easily remedied, those of our system of courts are deep-seated, constitutional, and almost impossible to eradicate. A man with a boil frets at the pain, but the physician is not worried, for he knows that a boil is seldom fatal. But if the man, however well he may look, have the symptoms of organic heart trouble, the diagnostician will look grave.

While the inefficiency of our judiciary and the maladministration of justice in our courts have not yet led to the universal debauchery of the public conscience exhibited in the profligate days of the Roman Empire or to the anarchy of the French Revolution, there is among us a deep-seated discontent at the conditions of inequality and injustice which exist. Our people as yet scarcely know where to put the blame. Some believe the fault to lie with the big corporations, others that the political machines are to blame. But the social philosopher knows that the latter troubles are only skin deep; he must look into the heart of things, and once there, he finds the nerves of justice paralyzed.

If I did not believe that the American people have brains and conscience finally to remedy and reform our abominable courts, I would never have written this work. I desire to see justice and a square deal for all men established on this earth. I do not want to be a party to the oppression of any man, whatever his color or nationality. I want the United States to take possession of Venezuela, not for the purpose of wronging or humiliating the people of Venezuela, but for the purpose of conferring upon them the greatest blessing possiblethe benefits of civilization. If they can be rid of their blustering, murdering military Jefes, well and good, but I do not wish to thrust a greater tyranny upon them in the shape of a judiciary which works injustice.

I am satisfied, however, that the American people are fully equal to every task that can be placed upon them. I know the social life of practically every State in this Union, and I know that in intelligence and morality our people have never been surpassed in the annals of time.

The supreme problems now confronting us are the establishment and maintenance of an efficient judiciary in our own country and the control of the Latin-American despotisms of which I speak. All other problems confronting us are simple and unimportant in comparison.

IV. OUR NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

The national government is the concrete expression of all the forces at play in the American national life, and it is good, remarkably good. The encouraging thing about it is that it is getting better

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and not worse. The average American does not realize what an incomparably good government we have. The national government of the United States, pre-eminent in virtue, prudence, wisdom, enterprise, among all the governments of history, rules our colonies and shapes their destiny. It gives these colonies, in the solution of their problems, the benefit of the best brains and conscience of America. Is there another city in the world which is governed as admirably as Washington? Are there any places on earth where civilization has made such rapid strides in the past five years as it has in Puerto Rico and the Philippines? Cuba was one vast hole of filth and yellow fever, poverty and crime, before the occupation of the American army. What has become of it all? To-day there are order and comparative cleanliness and decency in Cuba. Havana, formerly the abode of filth, is to-day comparatively clean, with the prospect of still further betterment; and I have often thought what a great blessing it would be if New Orleans and Chicago were placed under the rule of Uncle Sam and his army for a while, so that similar beneficent changes might be effected in their sanitation.

Any territory which the national government of the United States rules is certain to be well governed. The national government represents, and must represent, the heart and brains of the whole people of the United States, and it is good. And so it will remain, getting better, not worse, for the American people are growing in grace, and they are continuing to grow. For semi-barbarous countries to have the benefit of the wisdom and the practical and scientific experience as well as the co-operation and protection of this nation would be to them a blessing. The United States government will not oppress anybody. It has protected the weak and innocent, carried hope and prosperity to the poor, and established security and learning where before were only ignorance and crime. Almost every civilized man, black, yellow, and white, in Spanish America would be glad to see the United States take possession of them all. The characters of the men who would object form one of the strongest arguments why it should be done.

CHAPTER X

THE UNITED STATES NEEDS MORE TERRITORY

TH

HE Hay-Herran treaty, which failed in Bogotá, was a convention relating to the construction of the Panama Canal, and it would appear that its terms should have been confined to the business in hand. But it was not; and one of its sections illustrates a prevailing phase of American statesmanship, which may well call forth a protest, on the ground, if upon no other, that it was entirely foreign to the question at issue. The section to which reference is made is that which declared it to be the policy of the United States not to acquire more territory, its somewhat ostentatious profession of friendship for Latin-American countries, and its declaration to the effect that least of all would we think of extending our domains in their direction.

To insert a clause of this nature in a treaty to which it could have no proper relation was careless. What authority had President Roosevelt or Secretary Hay to declare that the United States will not extend its territory into Latin America, or elsewhere in the world? That may be, and doubtless is, the policy of the administration of President Roosevelt, and at the time that treaty was drafted it voiced the opinion of the majority of the American people; but who among us is wise enough to predict that such a policy will meet with the approval of the people and government ten years from that date? Without any reference to our desires in the premises, it may be that we shall have to take these countries, for the purpose of suppressing the eternal anarchy in them, or turn them over to some responsible European power, or face the alternative of fighting all civilization; and if so, of what use would be the obiter dictum in the Hay-Herran treaty?

But this matter of territory should be looked at in another light. I maintain that the United States does want more territory. It may not know that it wants it; but it wants it just the same, and it is going to find out its wants very quickly. For a nation to say that it does not want more land seems as absurd as it would be for a man to say that he did not want any more gold. He should want it, if only for the good he could do with it.

Were the whole domain of the United States to be divided up among its inhabitants, there would be only about thirty acres for each. If a farmer holding only thirty acres of land, urged to increase

his holdings, were to reply that he did not believe in these vast estates, of say eighty or a hundred and sixty acres; if, when he was told that the additional holdings would give his sons elbow room, a chance to raise independent families of their own, he should retort by railing against the commercial imperialistic spirit of the age, — rational men would consider him a fool; and yet his arguments are no less absurd than those of the people who are opposed to any further extension of our territory.

There is no fallacy greater than the belief that we have enough territory. The one thing in the world which is not increasing, in which no increase is apparently possible, is land. The population of the world is increasing, in some nations, particularly ours, at a great rate. But land is essential to support this increase of population. Shall the immense uncultivated tracts of land remain forever waste and unavailable for civilized habitation, because of some technical interpretation of international law or the vague illusions of benevolent theorists?

If the United States possessed all the land now occupied by Spanish-American countries, there would be only about sixty acres for each individual. To a man in Texas or in Minnesota this will not seem a large amount; nor is it. If the population of the United States keeps on increasing at the present rate for fifty years longer, what will the people do, how will the sons of the succeeding generations acquire homesteads?

If the United States is wise, it will want more land, and want it while there is a chance to get it. We want more land so that our manufacturers can sell their goods to the populations of those lands; to induce those people to use our soap; to get them to throw away their breech-clouts and wear pants of our manufacture; to induce them to use our steel rails, our machinery, our products. Moreover, our people are now wanting more land to establish homesteads for their children; they want this land under the American flag if they can get it, but at all events they want it under a civilized flag. They do not care to settle in Spanish America under the present governments; therefore they go elsewhere. That large numbers of our people are already seeking cheaper homes for their children will be seen from the following article on American immigration into the Northwest of Canada.

I. AMERICAN IMMIGRATION INTO THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST

In the October number of the "Colonizer," for 1903, a monthly publication of London, England, is reproduced quite a lengthy article written by the Canadian correspondent of the "Times, on the subject of American immigration into the Canadian Northwest. Among other things the writer says: