QUAY AND AMERICA

(May 30, 1904)

It is not imperatively necessary, upon the occasion of the death of a man like Quay, for a newspaper that has spoken its mind about him during his life to enter upon a minute survey either of his career or his characteristics. His private life is not matter of public concern; his public career has been the subject of comment, from time to time, throughout its duration. To dwell upon personal virtues or attractions, by way of escape from treatment of the nature of his political acts and of those personal doings of his which were connected with politics, would be to confuse counsel. What is of importance to the public is his relations not to his family or his personal friends, but to the government of his State and of the country. If his career is to be reviewed, it must be reviewed from this standpoint. But, as we have said, such a review, though it might be useful, is hardly necessary, in a newspaper whose opinion of the nature of Quay's public career has been frequently and emphatically expressed.

One thing, however, forces itself upon our mind as the word in season upon this occasion. The peculiarity of Quay's career which is of the first importance to Americans is that it is a distinctively American career; and it behooves us all to consider what is the significance of this salient fact. In no other of the great nations of the world that are in the enjoyment of parliamentary institutions would such a

career be possible. Let any one read the obituary notices, and the editorial articles, on Quay that have appeared since his death on Saturday-and it does not matter whether he reads them in his own organ, the Philadelphia Inquirer, or in the paper most opposed to Quay-and he will find that there is not a solitary thing in the record which could, by any conceivable chance, have made him a great figure in England, or France, or Germany. No British politician, no public man in France or Germany, has risen to power or importance except in one of two ways either conspicuous service in administrative affairs or genuine and open leadership in parliamentary politics. Nobody claims either of these things for Quay. He held no administrative office of importance, and those that he did hold he left under a cloud. He hardly ever made a speech in the Senate. The one achievement in this line that is referred to in the biographical sketches-and it is pointed to with pride by his adherents-was his performance in blocking the course of the Wilson tariff bill by arming himself with Government reports, containing interminable tables of statistics, which he threatened to continue reading so long as the breath remained in his body. Nor is the absence of public utterance the only negative element marking the career of Quay in national politics. It is not claimed that he ever made an impress upon the course of public policy through the propagation in any other way of his own views or opinions upon public questions. His power in the Senate was solely the power of "management" and intrigue.

If this were the whole case, it would be sufficient

to establish the contention we began with-namely, that the ascendancy of a man with a career like Quay's, as a figure of high importance in the public life of the nation, would be utterly impossible in any of the great parliamentary countries of Europe. But it is not the whole case, nor the most conclusive part of it. Long before Quay entered the Senate his name had, in his own State, and in a large part of his own party in the State, been a byword for political corruption and for malfeasance in office. The Philadelphia Press, the leading Republican paper of Pennsylvania, had declared, long before, that if the transactions connected with his occupancy of the State Treasurer's office were laid bare the exposure would be such as to strike Republicans dumb. The facts, or alleged facts, thus referred to were repeatedly published in papers of the highest standing and of the most ample pecuniary responsibility. Quay never sued these papers for libel, nor did he demand an investigation. And this was only one of the many scandals springing from his connection with public office and with banking institutions having dealings with the State Government. Alongside of all this was the system of fraudulent elections which has made the name of Pennsylvania, and especially of Philadelphia, a term of reproach to the institutions of this Republic; and Quay and his machine have persistently refused to permit the passage of laws that would put an end to the rotten election system. As for the franchise steals, the Legislative bribery, the means by which, when in a tight place, Quay managed to win over enough antiQuay Legislaturemen to secure his re-election to

the Senate-we need not enter into details on any of these points. One of the chief claims made for him-and it may cheerfully be granted-is that he was not a hypocrite; and this, being interpreted, means that he never pretended not to carry on politics in about the way that has been here indicated.

Now, we are not engaged in determining how bad a man Quay may have been, whether others in the same walk of life are better or worse, or whether persons in other walks of life would or would not do as he did if they had a chance. When Dr. Livingstone spoke to a certain African chief about goodness and badness, the noble savage declared that there is no such thing as goodness-that the only persons who are good are those who are not strong enough to be bad. As many as choose to take this view of ethics are welcome to continue in it. We do not propose to go so deep into the mysteries of human life. What we are talking about is a simple matter of fact. Of all the great countries in the world, our own is the only one in which great public eminence could be attained by a man who practically never made a speech in Congress, who never administered an important office, whose name has never been identified with any significant views of public affairs, who has been the centre of a great amount of unrefuted scandal connected with the use of public moneys, and who is absolutely known to be at the head of a great mechanism for the corruption and falsification of elections and the debauching of legislative bodies. This is not an opinion, not a speculation; it is a fact. And it behooves Americans to consider how long they can afford to look upon

they are to adopt this last conclusio fact that no such standard as we h a moment tolerated in any country are willing to place ourselves in co be unpatriotic or over-righteous America as high a standard of hon criterion of leadership as that w other countries, we are very will brand of over-righteousness and la