TENTH CHAPTER

SUMMARY

I

THE American system of party organization, which we have considered in its various aspects, was the outcome and the expression of triumphant democracy. The eclipse of the old ruling class, which became definitive after the first quarter of the last century, appeared to leave the individual, now a member of the sovereign people, in possession of the field. To secure the full enjoyment of his rights over the commonwealth, and to facilitate the discharge of his political duties, which were growing more and more complicated through the extension of the democratic principle to its furthest limits, and more and more burdensome owing to the great economic outburst which absorbed every energy-the citizen accepted the services of the party Organization formed on the representative method. This extra-constitutional Organization. assumed a twofold function in the economy of the new political system: that of upholding the paramount power of the citizen, and of ensuring the daily working of the governmental machinery in a democratic community whose volume was continually increasing with unprecedented rapidity, and whose composition was becoming more and more heteroge

neous.

In the first of these two undertakings the Organization failed miserably, in the second it achieved a relative success. The government rested almost entirely on the elective system, nearly all the office-holders were elected, and the shortness of their terms of office made it necessary to replace them very frequently. How could the citizen, if left to himself, have grappled with this onerous task, which consisted in filling up such a number of places, and which was continually recurring?

The system of nominating conventions, established on the basis of parties, provided a way out of the difficulty. By preparing the election business beforehand, by putting it cut and dried before the elector, the party Organization enabled the citizens to discharge their duty in an automatic way, and thus keep the government machine constantly going. Far from being embarrassed by the growing number of the electors, the party Organization made room for them, installed them in the State. In the case of electors of foreign extraction it did more; it was the first to assimilate the immigrants from the four quarters of the globe with the American population; by sweeping them, almost on their arrival, into its net, it forthwith made these aliens sharers in the struggles and the passions which were agitating the country in which they had just landed. It brought together and sorted all the elements of the political community, well or ill, but in the end everything found its place and settled down. And as in the improved machines of our day, which take in the raw material and turn it out transformed, these accumulated elements supplied the driving power of which the governmental machinery stood in need. The refuse even contributed to this purpose; everything was turned to account, the dregs of the population as well as the élite.

But this result, a highly important one, was obtained at the cost of the citizen's power, of the freedom of his political conscience, and of his influence in the State. Instead of giving him a firmer grasp of the government, the Caucus system has seriously weakened his hold thereon, for it diminished the efficacy of the machinery of government, provided by the constitution, as well as that of the living forces which are its real motor.

The executive was the first to give way. The convention movement claimed to infuse fresh vigour into it by withdrawing the Presidency from the intrigues of aristocratic cliques, such as the Congressional Caucus, and by making it emanate directly from the people. The electoral college, which was established by the framers of the constitution, and which had already been practically reduced to a cipher by that caucus, thenceforth took its orders from universal suffrage. But the latter has never been able to exercise its power itself, the new

system has left it only a choice between two candidatures, which is often a choice of two evils, the candidatures being settled beforehand by professional politicians under the influence of a host of calculations and considerations among which it is not always easy to discover a concern for the public interest. The representative character of the President could not therefore be enhanced under the régime of the democratized Caucus; the President was not able to become, through its agency, the tribune of the people, as he is sometimes represented, since it is not to the people that he primarily owed his office, and it is therefore not to the people or to the people alone that he was responsible, but to the party Organization. Having made itself the real bestower of the candidatures and sole contractor for the presidential election, the Organization laid hold of the Presidency for the party. The President ceased to be head of the nation, and became head of a party. And, even then, he was head of the party only in name; he was not at liberty to assert his initiative, to give the party a policy, to form comprehensive designs and far-reaching plans on its behalf, for all the interests of the party were reduced to the immediate preoccupations of its Organization, to its appetites, which sought satisfaction in the patronage entrusted to the President by the constitution. The President was left with the rôle of grand cup-bearer of the party. Having been lowered to this position, he lost the full scope of his authority in the constitutional sphere. Chief of the executive responsible for the enforcement of the laws, he no longer had the choice of his agents. Associated with the legislative power, he could no longer treat on equal terms with that power, which was his co-ordinate under the constitution. He could obtain its cooperation only by currying favour with it, by sacrificing the independence and the dignity of his office. If he refused to make himself a tool of Congress, he doomed himself to impotence, in spite of his constitutional powers, however extensive these may appear to certain people who are fond of magnifying them and comparing them to the powers of an absolute monarch. In the case of political prerogatives, the possession of them does not imply the ability to exercise them, for this ability is a matter not so much of legal right as of moral authority. The rare attempts at resistance offered to

Congress by the Presidents, by Cleveland, for instance, perhaps enhanced the reputation of the men, but did not restore the prestige of the office. The apparently authoritative acts of other Presidents who of late years have involved the country in perilous adventures, far from proving the strength of the presidential office have only brought out its weakness more clearly the office has not been able to supply the deficiency of character in its incumbents, and they proved themselves powerless to resist the clamour of the fanatics of Congress and of the press, in spite of the constitutional protection with which the separation of powers had encompassed them. Thus the shrinkage undergone by the presidential office paralyzed the efforts of its strongest representatives and encouraged the weakness of the others.

However Congress, which usurped the powers of the executive, which gained what the latter lost, has also lapsed from the high place assigned to it by the framers of the constitution. The Caucus was one of the principal, if not the principal agent of this fall. The Senate of the United States no longer has any resemblance to that august assembly which provoked the admiration of the Tocquevilles. It would be no use looking for the foremost men of the nation there; neither statesmen nor orators are to be found in it. In wisdom, in balance, in dignity, the States' chamber is far inferior to the popular branch of Congress. The Senate no longer acts as a conservative element, as a brake for checking popular impulses, for moderating heedless ardour; on the contrary, it is this assembly which often gives the signal for extravagant conduct either in financial matters or in the sphere of foreign politics. The Senate is, for the most part, filled with men of mediocre or no political intelligence, some of whom, extremely wealthy, multi-millionnaires, look on the senatorial dignity as a title for ennobling their well or ill gotten riches; others, crack wire-pullers, State bosses, or representatives of large private industrial or financial concerns, find the Senate a convenient base of operations for their intrigues and their designs on the public interest; others, again, without convictions or without definite or well-matured ideas but sensitive to every breath of public opinion and fond of vulgar popularity, act as the noisy mouthpieces of every movement which flatters the suscepti

bilities of the crowd. They represent everything save enlightened opinion, to which they do not pay the slightest heed.

And it is through the Caucus that these men, especially those of the first two categories, get into the Senate; the State Legislatures, which elect the Senators of the United States, are composed of creatures of the Machine, and they bestow the senatorial office on the favourites of the party Organization. In the States ruled by the bosses, the boss, if he wants to go into the Senate, has but to hold up his hand, and the most eminent competitor will be sacrificed to him without further ado, were he of the stamp of the Websters or the Clays. The rich men buy a seat in the Senate from the party Organization for cash, with scarcely any disguise; if they do not "make" the Legislature with their own money, on the method of Jay Gould, they subscribe very liberally to the funds of the Organization; and the latter, to discharge its obligation to them, procures them the dignity of Senator- it orders its liegemen in the Legislature to vote for them.

Whilst the Senate was being filled with men of an inferior type, it was assuming powers higher than those conferred on it by the constitution. It has not only encroached on the province of the executive in the matter of appointments to offices and of negotiation of treaties, but even on that of the House of Representatives; it has nullified the initiative in regard to finance, reserved by the constitution for the popular branch of Congress. By its right of amendment, of which it made an improper use, and by systematic obstruction, which consisted in keeping the bills passed by the House hung up in committee, the Senate brought the House to do its will. This usurpation was carried out, once more, with the powerful help of the Caucus. Having established the focus of the party Organization in the Senate, the Caucus gave that assembly a position of vantage over the Representatives and the executive, who are dependent on that very Organization; it placed the Senators in a sort of ambush, from which they can hit everybody without being struck themselves. They can do this with impunity because the Caucus has freed them from all responsibility; they owe nothing to public opinion, as they are indebted for their seats solely to their relations with the party Organization; and there is no fear of their being called