of popular voting.

Owing to the six-years' senatorial term and to the fact
that it is a smaller and more workable body, plus the advan-
tage of powers second in importance only to those of the
President, the Senate has greater attractions for the serious
politician than the House. It is in that chamber, consequently,
that the representatives of the powerful industrial organisa-
tions and the chief lawyers and leaders of State politics are
to be found. It has been dubbed " the millionaire's club,"
by reason of its members including so many men of great
wealth and also perhaps because it is supposed to favour the
great vested interests. Nevertheless, the present President,
Woodrow Wilson, contends that the Senate " represents the
country, as distinct from the accumulated populations of the
country, much more fully and much more truly than the
House of Representatives does." On the other hand, how-
ever, there are pubhcists who argue that as at present



24 America of the Americans

constituted the Senate is out of touch with present-day
conditions.

In addition to such privileges as freedom from arrest during
the sessions of Congress save for treason or felony, and freedom
of speech in debate, Senators and Repre-
Salanes of sentatives alike enjoy a yearly salary of $7,500
(£1,500), plus traveUing allowances and a
further sum for " clerk hire." The last item is higher for a
Senator than for a Representative, the former receiving
$1,800 (£340) as compared with the $1,500 (£300) for the lat-
ter. In addition each congressman is allowed a considerable
sum for stationery. The " clerk hire " and the stationery
are recognition of the fact that a Congressman has to deal
with a vast amount of correspondence, and it was as a con-
cession to that tax upon their time that the seats of Senators
and Representatives were equipped with a large writing-desk.
The desks still remain in the Senate and House, and a casual
visitor to either chamber will perhaps be astonished to observe
that most of their occupants, instead of hstening to the
debates, are engrossed in writing, or in reading newspapers.
Many Americans, however, are growing ashamed of the
" ragged appearance " of their chief legislature, and harbour
the hope that now the Congressmen have voted themselves
" clerk hire " the desks will soon be abolished.

As any member of Congress is at liberty to introduce as
many bills as he pleases, and as it is by such means that
Congressmen can secure money grants for their constituencies
— a process which is tersely described as " getting pork out
of the pubHc pork-barrel " — ^it may be imagined that the
volume of legislative business is prodigious. For one member
to introduce ten bills at a single sitting, each an attempt to
" get pork," is nothing out of the ordinary ; while the total
of bills, etc., submitted in one Congress has reached the
amazing figure of 35,000 ! Of these, however, less than
8,000 became law. The remainder were massacred by the
various committees to which they were referred.



:^W YORK



President and Congress 25

For an elaborate machinery of standing committees is an

essential element of the American system of government. They

vary in number, but as the total for the two

^c^ ^^tt^^"^ chambers has exceeded 130, it is obvious that
it must be difficult to introduce a bill which
does not come within the province of one of them. Unless
the committee to which it is referred reports on a bill, it is
never brought before the House or Senate or heard of again.
These committees, it should be added, always have a majority
of the dominant party, and in the main they carry on their
work in secret. This method of legislation has been severely
criticised by members of the House, one of whom summed up
the situation in this indictment : " You send important
questions to a committee ; you put into the hands of a few
men the power to bring in bills, and then they are brought
in with an ironclad rule, and rammed down the throats of
members ; and then those measures are sent out as being the
deliberate judgment of the Congress of the United States
when no deliberate judgment has been expressed by any man."

Save among those who are " in the game," the average
American opinion of the pohtician is not flattering. It
regards poHtics as " not a proper thing for a cultured man
to touch." A business man of an alert mind and possessing
considerable oratorical gifts when asked to run for Congress
declared that he " took it as a personal insult," while Mr.
Roosevelt's family stoutly opposed his resolve to embrace a
political career on the plea that his colleagues would be
" nobody but grooms, hquor dealers and low politicians."
That moral character is not deemed an essential quaHfication
for political leadership is cogently illustrated by the fact that
for the presidential contest of 1908 the Socialist Labour party
nominated as its candidate a man who was in prison serving
a sentence of twenty-five years for murder !

American scorn of the pohtician and indifference to corrup-
tion and " boss " rule are the harvest of the dominance of the
political machine. Intelligent and high-minded citizens,



26 America of the Americans

besides comforting themselves with the American proverb

that " God takes care of drunkards, httle children, and

the United States," declare that they have

American ^q motive for taking an interest in political
Inuirferenc6

to Politics. questions, inasmuch as the control of a party-
does not ensure the control of the govern-
ment. It is only necessary to compare the presidential
" platforms " of the Republicans and Democrats to realise
that neither of those parties has any dynamic relation to the
issues of the present day. The former came into existence
to oppose the extension of slavery, and, among other things,
favour a broad interpretation of the Constitution, a high
protective tariff, the gold standard, and the supremacy of
the federal as opposed to State government. On the other
hand, the Democratic party is pledged to the strict letter of
the Constitution, advocates a low tariff for revenue purposes,
is opposed to the centralising of governmental power, and has
no S57mpathy with that Republican imperiahsm which brought
the Phihppines within the sphere of American influence. But
either party will pilfer each other's thunder when occasion
is ripe. The chief plank in the Roosevelt platform, for
example, war on the Trusts, was annexed from the Democrats.
In his new pose as the leader of the Progressive party, Mr.
Roosevelt has constructed a platform the planks of which
have been filched indifferently from the programmes of the
Socialists, Labourites, and Populists. The one modern party
which has followed a single ideal with unchanged tenacity
is that of the Prohibitionists, who are frankly pledged to
" the enactment and enforcement of laws prohibiting and
abolishing the manufacture, importation, transportation, and
sale of alcohohc beverages." But pending that new alignment
of parties which the pressure of modern problems must evolve,
the chief combat in the pohtical arena will be waged between
the Democrats and Republicans, for even the strongest of the
minor parties can command only an insignificant vote in a
presidential campaign.



CHAPTER II

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Whoever travels from San Francisco to New York by the
" Sunset Route " of the Southern Pacific Railroad and has
occasion to study the wine list in the buffet car, can hardly
fail to observe the following foot-notes at the bottom of that
card :

" No wines or hquors sold between Redlands Junction and
Yuma, or in Texas, Louisiana, Oregon, or on Sunday in
New Mexico."

" No cigars or cigarettes sold in Louisiana on Sunday."
" No cigarettes sold in Nevada, Nebraska, or Washington.'
While the native American has a clear understanding of
the inwardness of those statements, travellers from other
lands will naturally seek an explanation of
Dual System ^j^ j meaning. And in reply he will be
of Governments. , , , ■, r -r^ ,, i t

mformed that from Redlands Junction to

Yuma the train passes through those counties of California
in which local prohibition is in force ; and that during the
journey across Texas and Louisiana it comes within the
sphere of State prohibition. It should be added that the
foot-notes in question are hable to change from time to time,
inasmuch as States and counties suffer from alternate " wet "
and " dry " spasms ; but as they have been quoted above
they provide a concrete illustration of the manner in which
the daily life of the American is regulated by the duality of
his system of government. Such a journey indeed as that
between San Francisco and New York is an object lesson in the
overlapping of Federal and State control. As a fare-paying
passenger, the traveller is under the law of Congress which
regulates railroad rates, but his enjoyment of a " wet " spell

27



28 America of the Americans

or his disgust over a " dry " interval must be laid to the
account of local or State ordinances.

In addition to Congress, there are forty-eight law-making

bodies in the United States, that is, one for each of the

commonwealths included in the Union. That

Forty-eight ^^^^ -g ^^ course, a survival of colonial times.

Parliaments, t^ , . ■, i

Each of the charter, or royal, or proprietary

colonies had its governor and council and lower house plus
various systems of local government, and when they formed
a Union it was natural for them to preserve a continuity with
their past. As Professor Charles A. Beard has reminded his
countrymen, " American government did not originate in any
abstract theories about Hberty and equality, but in the actual
experience gained by generation after generation of English
colonists in managing their own political affairs. The Revolu-
tion did not make a breach in the continuity of their institu-
tional life." The same authority has also pointed out that
many State constitutions still reveal traces of Revolutionary
days ; indeed, the progressive history of the United States
is perhaps more clearly illustrated in the constitutions of the
various States than in any other documents.

One of the most pronounced differences of the two great
pohtical parties of to-day, the Democrats and Republicans,
is related to the question of States rights.
Democrats As the Republicans owe their existence and
^Rights.*^ much of their tradition to their conquest in
the Civil War, which in its origin had more to
do with the problem of States rights than with slavery, they
are committed to a Federal rather than a State policy ; in
other words, the tendency of Republicanism is towards the
centralization of authority. On the other hand, the Demo-
crats cling to States rights with the tenacity of the heirs of
that pohcy which justified the cotton States in leaving the
Union.

According to the letter of the Constitution, the eleven
Southern States which formed the Confederacy of 1861 acted






PUBLIC






State and Local Government 29

strictly within their rights in seceding from the Union, for
that document did not prohibit a State from leaving the

Union. Nor has it ever been amended to

Limitation include such a prohibition. Yet the result of

Rights. the Civil War is now accepted as having all the

force of a constitutional law against secession.
Hence, although some of the States may still style themselves
" sovereign," the power to secede has been tacitly abandoned.
And the Constitution expressly defines other limitations of
States rights. For example, no State can impose duties on
exports or imports, arrange treaties with foreign nations,
seriously interfere with interstate commerce, coin money or
issue bills of credit, impair the obhgation of contracts, or
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without process
of law.

If, however, a State has no power over tariff rates or such
high matters as international pohtics, its authority over the
daily hfe of the citizen is more immediate than that of Con-
gress. It touches the " common round, the daily task " at
a multitude of points, for it presides at the birth, directs
the education, interferes with the trade, regulates the mar-
riage and divorce, taxes the property, and adjudicates
upon the moral behaviour of all who reside within its
bounds.

That duality of legislative and executive departments
which has been shown to prevail in Federal affairs is repeated

in the forty-eight State governments. That
Constitution jg ^q gay, each State has its two-chambered
Legislatures. Parliament though there is no uniformity

in the generic name, which rings the changes
on " the General Assembly," " the Legislative Assembly,"
and " the General Court." Contrary to the practice which
obtains in connection with the Senate, all the members of
the State legislatures. Senators as well as Representatives,
are elected by popular vote, though in the majority of cases
the Federal distinction of a longer term for a Senator is



30 America of the Americans

preserved. The payment of members is universal, but there
uniformity stops, for the salaries range from $3 (12s.) to S\2
{£2 8s.) per day or from $200 (£40) to $1,500 (/300) a year,
with other variations in the case of those States which remu-
nerate their law-makers by the session. The latter legislate
on a kind of piece-work scale, being paid so much a day for
a specific number of days and only a third of that amount
if the session is protracted beyond the given period. These
State parliaments have no uniform time-table, for the sessions
vary from annual to quadrennial sittings, and in some States
a definite period of from forty to ninety days is allowed for
the session.

Reference has already been made to the amazing total of
bills passed by Congress in a single session, and when that
total is supplemented by the activities of
Enormous forty-eight additional parliaments, it will be
Laws.° seen that the legislative output of the United
States is unrivalled. An example of the law-
making luxuriance of a given State is provided by Massa-
chusetts. At the close of one session of the General Court
one of the Boston newspapers gave a list of the brief titles of
the acts and resolves which had been passed by that assembly,
and even in that abbreviated form they occupied no fewer
than twelve columns of small print ! The acts numbered
657 and the resolves 147, giving a total of 804 measures
for a single session of one State ! Of course, the majority
of these ordinances were concerned with trivial affairs, includ-
ing such matters as empowering a county treasurer to
" employ clerical assistance," or giving a town permission to
acquire a plot of land for a pubhc hall or providing for " the
protection of grey squirrels " ; and in that fact, according to
some Americans, may be found the reason why State legis-
latures only attract men of small calibre or those whose
integrity is questionable.

One result of this fecundity in law-making — in a given five
j'-ears the State legislatures have passed more than 45,000 acts !



State and Local Government 31

—has been to strengthen the demand for less legislation.
" There are too many laws on our statute books," pro-
tested a New York editor. " The freedom
Too Many ^^ America has become a joke. The oppressed
Russian peasant and the unhappy citizen of
monarchical Great Britain each is many degrees freer men
than a police-driven, reform-ridden American. Because one
does not drink whisky is no reason why he should insist on
a law to make the distilling of spirits a felony. Because the
majority of the legislators go smooth shaven or indulge at
the most in the way of facial adornment in a moustache, that
would afford no just cause for outlawing Governor Hughes."
This is not mere journalistic prejudice ; in America, confesses
a University professor, " the State interferes with what is
commonly regarded as individual liberty perhaps as much as
any country in the world."

But another and more immediately serious result is the
constant perplexity of citizens and even lawyers as to the
state of the law on a given subject. The president of a great
railroad is on record as saying that he was anxious to obey
the law, but had great difficulty in finding out what it was,
while a legal authority affirms that no lawyer can advise a
cHent on the simplest propositions of marriage or divorce
without sending not only to his own State legislature but for
the most recent statute of any other State bearing on the
question. The situation, indeed, has reached this pass :
"All those doing business under a corporate firm primarily,
but also those doing business at all ; all owners of property,
all employers of labour, all bankers or manufacturers or con-
sumers ; all citizens, in their gravest and their least actions,
also must look into their papers every morning to make sure
that the whole law of Hfe has not been changed for them by a
statute passed overnight."

In view of the average abihty and character of the men
attracted to the State legislatures, it is not surprising that
informed American opinion has but slight regard for the



32 America of the Americans

form and contents of their ordinances. In form they are
often " full of contradictions, omissions, repetitions, bad
grammar, and bad spelling " ; while their
Corrupt purport is too frequently designed to favour
egis a 10 . pQ^gj.f^i corporations. What Mr. Roosevelt
asserted of New York State, the legislature of which meets at
Albany, is beheved to be more or less true of every common-
wealth : " There is hardly one of the many and widely diver-
sified interests of the State that has not a mouthpiece at
Albany, and hardly a single class of these citizens, not even
excepting, I regret to say, the criminal class, which lacks its
representative among the legislators." Although some States
have made praiseworthy attempts to defeat the lobb3dng
which is thoroughly organised in the interests of big corpora-
tions, on which one insurance company spent more than a
milHon dollars in ten years, the system has taken so deep a
root in American pohtical Hfe that its final eradication is
probably far distant.

Some State legislation is calculated to deceive the non-
elect. For it must not be imagined that the party " boss "
and the dominant party in a legislature always display a
callous indifference to bills intended to protect the morals
of a community ; on the contrary, a considerable body of
legislation of that type is often warmly supported by men
of a known dubious reputation. For example, cases are on
record of religious bodies having used their influence to secure
the introduction of bills imposing heavy fines on gambHng-
saloons and houses of ill-fame, which bills, to the amazement
of the uninitiated, have received the effectual support of
poHticians and legislators who were suspected of being in
league with gamblers and procurers. But the explanation
is simple : the party " boss " takes the biggest share of the
hush-money which is collected by the police as the price of
" protection " for gambhng dens and houses of prostitution ;
consequently, the heavier the fine imposed by law the higher
the rate charged for " protection."



State and Local Government 33

All these considerations help to elucidate why the current
of opinion is setting strongly against State legislatures ; why
there is a growing distrust of such assemblies ;
State ^]^y there is an ever-increasing tendency to

out^of Favour, li^^it the periodicity and length of their
sessions ; why the newer State Constitutions
are Hmiting the power of the legislature ; and why the powers
of the Governor are being ampHfied. It is a great temptation
to draw a comparison between the President of the Union and
the Governor of a State, but such an exercise is full of pitfalls.
Here again it is illuminating to consider colonial origins.
While the thirteen original colonies were still attached to the
mother country the governor was such in reality as well as
name ; he was appointed directly or indirectly by the King,
he recommended such laws as were thought advisable by the
home government, he possessed an absolute veto, and could
summon or adjourn or dismiss the legislature as he pleased.
Consequently the Governor was regarded by the colonists
as the embodiment of tjnranny, and having suffered much at
his hands, they naturally took particular care that under their
own system of government his authority should be rigidly
circumscribed.

That hmitation of the Governor's authority continued for
many generations, but, as hinted above, the prevailing ten-
dency of to-day is towards an increase of his

Governor and pQ^gj-s. No uniformity has been reached,
or is hkely to be achieved, but the fact that
in such a new State as Oklahoma the term of the Governor's
of&ce has been fixed at four years is significant. In two
States the period is but one year, but in more than twenty the
four-year term is in force. With rare exceptions, the salary
of the Governor is hardly adequate to his position, for even
thr highest, $12,000 (£2,400), is a meagre sum judged by the
American standard, while the lowest, $2,500 (£500) seems to
touch the bottom of parsimony. Although in the past the
Governor's appointing power has been smaU, there is a
3— (2393A)



34 America of the Americans

tendency towards its increase, thus giving him a greater con-
trol over the administration of the State. In some common-
wealths his message is beginning to be regarded as a legislative
programme, and many examples could be cited to show how
his power of calling an extraordinary session of the legislature
to consider measures which he favours has led to the enact-
ment of valuable bills. But it is in the exercise of the veto
that the Governor can most influence legislation. It is true
that that veto can be nuUified in most of the States by a
measure being re-passed by a two-thirds majority of both
houses, but in practice it has been found that the interval
for reconsideration created by the veto has resulted in a check
being placed on hasty or corrupt legislation. The Governor,
in short, has a growing influence over legislation, the trend of
which was illustrated b}^ a striking incident in connection
with one session of the California legislature. At the end of
the session the Governor had to decide whether he should or
should not sign a large number of bills, a condition which
gave him the virtual authority of a dictator.

In recent years there has been established an organisation

known as the House of Governors, one of the objects of which

is the promotion of uniformity in State legis-

House of lation, but an equally important feature of

which is regular discussions of the powers

and responsibihties of the chief State officer. Such discussions

give promise of practical results just because Americans are

beginning to realise that the Governor must have enlarged

executive powers if efficiency is to be obtained in State

government.

In addition to the Governor each State has a number of
other executive officers, including a Secretary of State, Trea-
surer, Auditor, Attorney-General, etc., while

r.^^^, lower down in the scale are countless other

Omcials. . . I'll 1 • •

functionaries charged with the administration

of pubhc works, education, charities, etc., etc. These offices

are indifferently elective or appointive, with the result, in the



State and Local Government 35

former case, of the voter being called upon to give his decision
on a number of men whose fitness for authority he is totally
unable to judge. " So ignorant are the mass of us," declared
one political leader, " actually and of necessity, about the
special quahfications of the several men we vote for, that
if the names on the ticket were shifted round, so that the
candidate for Congress were running for State engineer, the
superintendent of education for coroner, and the sheriff for
judge, it would be all the same to us in nine cases out of ten."
Hence the growing agitation for what is called the " short
Ballot," that is, a briefer list of candidates. For Americans
do not realise or are not ripe for the acceptance of the doctrine
that what is at the root of all the defects of their government
is the pernicious rotation system.

For if there are constant complaints as to the overlapping,

confusion, and inefficiency of State government, they are but

faint whisperings compared with the indict-

GoverrmSit ^^^^s of municipal government. There are