| Show THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT The poetical description of old age says a gentleman who has to deal officially with aged people are very different from the reality of weakness irritability personal negligence and sickness It is the old gap between what should be and what Is or what we call the real and the ideal This contrast was doubtless suggested to some musing spectator at the closing centennials of the great Revolutionary series at Newburgh and in New York When the retiring British fleet after firing the last shot of the Revolution Revolu-tion at the Staten Island patiiotfj who shouted with derisive glee and vanished beyond Sandy Hook and British authority was completely overthrown in the old colonies doubtless there were honest patriots in the city who breathed freely and joyfully in the conviction that now the American people chastened by long and sharp experience experi-ence would select the best citizens for the chief officers and make intelligence in-telligence and public virtue the foundation of the new government A few years later when Washington Washing-ton stood where the new statue of him in Wall street stands and took the oath to discharge loyally the great office to which he had been unanimously elected those honest patriots might well feel that their anticipations would be tulfillf and thrt the new republic would indicate in-dicate its character by the selection of men of the Washington mould for its official leaders But if one of them should stray into the city today to-day and express the same simple expectation would he or would he not be regarded with the amused surprise which greeted the awakening awaken-ing of Kip Van Winkle and would or would not his questions and his amazement seem as antiquated and strange as Rips dazed inquiries to his old companions and his ragged and quaint attire Let any reader turn to Mrs Lambs admirable and pleasant history his-tory of New York and look at the men who were foremost in the city government and In the city representation repre-sentation to the legislature a hundred hun-dred years ago and then contemplate contem-plate many of the corresponding dignataries today Would he not be conscious of the difference between be-tween the real and the ideal between be-tween the theory and the fact Obliged to ask himself whether the best men in the community were usually selected as its representatives representa-tives would he be able to answer simply and directly yes The Easy Chair could show him a community in which an honest able intelligent experienced and admirable representative repre-sentative was lately superseded in his own party by a political jobber for no other reason whatever except ex-cept that the honest and experienced man was disliked for the same reason thet Aristides was ostracised Doubtless the reader smiles as he proceeds and remarks that he could show the simple old Easy Chair plenty of such instances And if he should do so would it or would it not tend to show that the real operation of popular institutions is somewhat different from the ideal V The moral which the simple old Easy Chair desires to spring upon the smiling reader is that republics will not work themselves The good men will not appear in the high offices merely because in a republic re-public or a government of the numerical majority it will be always al-ways the interest of the community to select honest and competent officers It is the interest of drivers to treat their horses kindly but horses are often fearfully abused It was the interest of slaveholders to treat their slaves well but read the story of slavery It is in the interest inter-est of men to oe temperate frugal self restrained Does the smiling reader know any men who are not so Interest is a very powerful motive but it is not the strongest Passion of many kinds is stronger Principle is stronger It is undeniably un-deniably the interest of the community com-munity to select its best men for its officers but that interest will be overborne by passion by ignorance by brutality Professor Ely shows us that the defect of our political economy has been its overestimate and excavation of the power of selfinterest It is as true in the political as in the industrial sphere No man therefore has a right to complain that the reality of p > pu ar government is very different rrom its theory until he has done his share in supplying that active practical participation in it which the theory presupposes The theory of popular government is not that a few mercenary polite cians will select the best citizens for o 8 se but that the whole unity u-nity will do so If the honest early natriots who watched the evacuation evacua-tion of the city and the inauguration inaugura-tion of Washington supposed that the whole community would arouse itself at the appeal of every election they were mistaken What it can dD when it does arouse itself the overthrow of Tweed showed What enormous risks of every kind it runs by sluggishness and inactivity the history of the Tweed ring shows If therefore the city permits the selection of unworthy representatives representa-tives it is because it does not really care to have better representatives or even to try to have them There is immense indifference and inactivity inac-tivity because effort is said to be u of no use But that is the baby plea It is undoubtedly very difficult diffi-cult to know in the city for whom you are voting but if the community commun-ity really cared to know it would have a system under which it would know No device can supply the want of public spirit If an evil system prevents the real wish of the community from having its way when that wish is strong enough to be determined to have its way it will But an end to the evil I system It is a hundred years ago that r monarchy sailed away from our shores and nearly a hundred since the official oath of Washington began be-gan the united republic but would any grumbler really recall monarchy monar-chy or insist that because a republic repub-lic will not work itself it is not worth working George William Curtis in Harpers Magazine for January |
