danger of establishing new European colonies in America; the Venezuelan incident, with all its unreason, revealed clearly to the rest of the world the temper of the United States on that point. There is no longer any danger of the introduction of European monarchies — and, in fact, no European monarch could teach anything about absolute government to a Latin-American dictator. Finally, neither the American Doctrine nor any form of American doctrine means that the United States is to do whatever may seem good to it in America, or that its "permanent interest" involves a right to get away from inconvenient restrictions in the law of nations, as established by the practice of civilized peoples. We have too much at stake to raise unnecessary difficulties at home or abroad; we have to deal with and consider Latin-Americans, British-Americans, and American-Americans; we have to safeguard our interests in Europe, in the Pacific, and in Asia; we have to take account of the influence which this nation seems destined to exert on mankind. If there is to be in the coming century a great battle of Armageddon - once more Europe against the Huns- we can no more help taking our part with the hosts of freedom than we can help educating our children, building our churches, or maintaining the rights of the individual. There is no proper and permanent doctrine of foreign policy which does not recognize the United States as the great leader in all American affairs, and one of the great leaders in the affairs of mankind. There is no safe or permanent doctrine which does not recognize our sisterhood with other nations under international law. The "doctrine of permanent interest," therefore, is a doctrine of peace in America, international fellowship in the Eastern Hemisphere, and civilization everywhere. Albert Bushnell Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1901). CHAPTER XXXIII-PROBLEMS OF GOV ERNMENT 197. “An Old War Horse" (1880) BY WILLIAM HENRY MCELROY McElroy, a journalist, has written numerous articles for periodicals under his own name and also under his pseudonym of "Richard Scudder." Bibliography: Bowker and Iles, Reader's Guide in Economic, Social, and Political Science, 115-116. MY DEAR NEPHEW WHEN a WHEN I left you on Commencement Day I urged you to lose no time in getting into politics, promising that I would help you push your fortunes as occasion offered. Since then I have received a letter from you, in which you write that you have read Story on the Constitution, Benton's Thirty Years in the United States Senate, Greeley's American Conflict, two or three works on Political Economy, and De Tocqueville on America. I suppose there can be no objection to such reading. Likely enough it has its value. But what I particularly desire, my dear nephew, is that you should become a practical politician, thoroughly practical politician. I never remember reading any of the works you have mentioned, or any like them, unless, indeed, you call Barnum's How to Make Money a treatise on finance. And yet, cast your eyes over the salient points of my career. I have been alderman, supervisor, mayor, state representative, state senator, and congressman. For many years I have been chairman of our state and county committees. I can hardly remember the time when I didn't carry the vote of my own ward in my vest pocket, and of my own city in my trousers pocket, and I've got them there yet. For going on half a century I have had things pretty much my own way in caucuses and primaries, and the like. What has been the secret of my unusual success? I will try in strict confidence, as you will understand to give you some plain, blunt, non-partisan hints for your guidance in politics which may serve to answer the question. I. Never allow yourself to lose sight of the fact that politics, and not poker, is our great American game. If this could be beaten into the heads of some presumably well-meaning but glaringly unpractical people, we should hear less idiotic talk about reform in connection with politics. Nobody ever dreams of organizing a reform movement in poker. . . . And yet political reform clubs, designed to reform politics from the inside or the outside, are springing up on all sides. Of course, it is just as well not to attempt to argue the masses out of their deeply rooted notion that politics is what Noah Webster defines it to be," that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state." Ethics is very good in connection with politics. But then Webster, it must be remembered, was simply a learned lexicographer, and not a practical politician. No, no. No, no. Don't try to reason with the masses in this matter. The public has no head for such things. It will not understand. II. Mr. Lincoln, a very estimable and justly popular, but in some respects an impracticable man, formulated another widely diffused error in regard to politics. He held that ours is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. I maintain, on the contrary, that it is a government of politicians, by politicians, for politicians. If your political career is to be a success, you must understand and respect this distinction with a difference. III. Not a few capable but unpractical people, when they fall to discussing our governmental system, argue that the existence of parties is necessary to the welfare of our country. But long experience has taught me that the more sensible way for a practical politician to look at it is that the existence of the country is necessary to the welfare of parties. Thank Heaven, my dear nephew, that we have a country! IV. You have received your commission as postmaster of your village. A post-office is a capital political opening for a young man who has sense enough to discover how to make the right use of it. You will of course leave all matters touching the postal service to your deputy. Never forget that your pivotal duty as postmaster will be to nurse the party in your section. As a practical man, you must see, if you reflect a moment, that postmaster and local party-master must be convertible terms with you if you expect to be approved by the great party leaders, and to become a great leader yourself, some day. . . . In your selection of clerks you will be guided primarily by a determination to have only such men around you as will register your will every time at caucuses and conventions. V. I sincerely hope it is not necessary that I should counsel you always to vote the regular ticket, the whole regular ticket, and nothing but the regular ticket. Hold fast, I beseech of you, to the doctrine of the infallibility of your party in convention assembled. Delegates, like kings, "can do no wrong." The voters who scratch ballots or bolt nominations are to be regarded as the bane of politics, just as certain other reformers have been the bane of religion. They all belong in the same category, and all are equally deserving of the execration of every practical man, as exponents of the pestiferous doctrine of the right of private judgment. And just here a word in reply to the familiar question, Would you vote for the devil if he received the party's regular nomination? I have no hesitation in affirming that I certainly would. Let's look at it. If the day ever comes when the devil is nominated, the other side will be pretty sure to run Gabriel against him. Of the two, my choice would be the devil. To be sure, it would not be an ideal nomination, but then, neither is ours an ideal world. I am aware that the devil has split hoofs, pronounced horns, and a bifurcated tail. But do we choose candidates for their good looks? As to his moral character, I frankly admit it is not all I could desire; but after criticism has exhausted itself, the fact remains, conceded by both parties, that he is not as black as he is painted. On the other hand, he has many qualities that ought to commend him to practical men. He is self-made, he is thoroughly in earnest in all he undertakes, he is an untiring worker, he is one of the shrewdest of wire-pullers, he possesses vast and versatile accomplishments, he is unsurpassed in ability to find and manipulate the springs that move men, he has a positive genius for making friends. Gifted, popular, magnetic, at home in all circles, from the highest to the lowest, he would be certain to make a splendid run. As for Gabriel, I have only to say that, while his intellectual and moral endowments are undoubtedly of the highest order, there is great reason to fear that he would not succeed in the realm of practical politics. If elected to office, it is more than likely that he would prove more of a botheration than a boon to his party. He would be living up to the promises made during the canvass; he would resolutely decline to let well enough alone. Let me not be misunderstood. I yield to no one in my regard for Gabriel. But, as a practical man, I would feel called upon to vote against him, and do all I could for his opponent. In my own ward, where my influence is most potent and my political theories most approved of, I feel convinced that the devil would have a very large majority. This hypothetical case is of course an extreme one, and is never likely to occur. I have dealt with it simply for the sake of showing you that the position of those who insist upon the invariable support of regular nominations is sound in the last analysis. VI. How are scratchers and bolters to be dealt with? It is an exceedingly difficult question. I myself am at a loss to determine whether it is better to be extremely tender or awfully rough with them. Each policy is good at times, and in making a choice you must be guided by circumstances. In a sterner age than ours, an age that had less stomach for nonsense, gentlemen who were convicted of the crime of private judgment were burned at the stake. It is not permitted us in these latter, laxer days to make it as warm for scratchers and bolters as it was once made for John Huss; still we can show that we possess the sturdy practical views of those who flung Huss to the fagots, by pelting the scratchers and bolters with jeers, sneers, and innuendoes, by crediting them with the meanest of motives, and insisting that they are either traitorous, inconsequential knaves, or silly, inconsequential fools. As for those upon whom such treatment is lost (and I confess that I suspect it fails with the majority of scratchers and bolters), try what is known to practical politicians as the postponement treatment. . . . Those who employ it with the most gratifying results allow the impression to be produced in the patient's mind at the outset that, although they have never happened to find an election at which scratching or bolting could be indulged in without perfectly harrowing injury to public interests of colossal moment, yet, nevertheless, they heartily and unreservedly approve of scratching and bolting in the abstract. Be it yours to consult the expedient, leaving it to the purists of the party to consult the highly proper. [William Henry McElroy] An Old War Horse to a Young Politician, in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1880 (Boston, etc.), XLV, 761-765 passim. |