Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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Название Democracy and Liberty
Автор произведения William Edward Hartpole Lecky
Жанр Юриспруденция, право
Серия none
Издательство Юриспруденция, право
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781614872207



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the direct results of intentional and corrupt misrule.65

      No candid man can wonder at it. It is the plain, inevitable consequence of the application of the methods of extreme democracy to municipal government. In America, as in England, municipal elections fail to attract the same interest and attention as great political ones, and when all the smaller offices are filled by popular election, and when those elections are continually recurring, it is impossible for busy men to master their details or form any judgment on the many obscure candidates who appear before them. Property qualifications are deemed too aristocratic for a democratic people. The good old clause, that might once have been found in many charters, providing that no one should vote upon any proposition to raise a tax or to appropriate its proceeds unless he was himself liable to be assessed for such tax, has disappeared. ‘It is deemed undemocratic; practical men say there is no use in submitting it to a popular vote.’66 The elections are by manhood suffrage. Only a small proportion of the electors have any appreciable interest in moderate taxation and economical administration, and a proportion of votes, which is usually quite sufficient to hold the balance of power, is in the hands of recent and most ignorant immigrants. Is it possible to conceive conditions more fitted to subserve the purposes of cunning and dishonest men, whose object is personal gain, whose method is the organisation of the vicious and ignorant elements of the community into combinations that can turn elections, levy taxes, and appoint administrators?

      The rings are so skilfully constructed that they can nearly always exclude from office a citizen who is known to be hostile; though ‘a good, easy man, who will not fight, and will make a reputable figure-head, may be an excellent investment.’67 Sometimes, no doubt, the bosses quarrel among themselves, and the cause of honest government may gain something by the dispute. But in general, as long as government is not absolutely intolerable, the more industrious and respectable classes keep aloof from the nauseous atmosphere of municipal politics, and decline the long, difficult, doubtful task of entering into conflict with the dominant rings. ‘The affairs of the city,’ says Mr. White, ‘are virtually handed over to a few men who make politics, so called, a business. The very germ of the difficulty was touched once, in my presence, by a leading man of business in our great metropolis, who said: “We have thought this thing over, and we find that it pays better to neglect our city affairs than to attend to them; that we can make more money in the time required for the full discharge of our political duties than the politicans can steal from us on account of our not discharging them.” ‘68

      The following interesting passage from one of the chief living historians of America well represents the new spirit. ‘It has become the fashion to set limits on the power of the governors, of the legislatures, of the courts; to command them to do this, to forbid them to do that, till a modern State constitution is more like a code of laws than an instrument of representative government. A distrust of the servants and representatives of the people is everywhere manifest. A long and bitter experience has convinced the people that legislators will roll up the State debt unless positively forbidden to go beyond a certain figure; that they will suffer railroads to parallel each other, corporations to consolidate, common carriers to discriminate, city councils to sell valuable franchises to street-car companies and telephone companies, unless the State constitution expressly declares that such things shall not be. So far has this system of prohibition been carried, that many legislatures are not allowed to enact any private or special legislation; are not allowed to relieve individuals or corporations from obligations to the State; are not allowed to pass a Bill in which any member is interested, or to loan the credit of the State, or to consider money Bills in the last hours of the session.’75 In Washington, a still stronger measure has been adopted, and the whole municipal government is placed in the hands of a commission appointed directly by the Congress.