TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PRESIDENT 3/(oKLNLEY.
THE instinctive optimism of Americans, so often a source of strength to them, deceived them grievously about the chances in favour of President McKinley sur- viving his terrible wound. He never had any. We do not believe the story of poison ; that is a mere suggestion of surgeons who fancy themselves discredited by their mistaken diagnosis. The heavy bullet of the murderer's revolver, so different from the light bullet of the Mauser rifle, which makes a dean cut, rent its way through the body, paralysed the powers of the stomach, and set up a gangrene along the whole course of the wound. The ill-fated President was a strong man, who had lived a temperate though overworked life, and he survived for seven days ; oat they were days practically without food, and when the gangrenous mischief reached a certain point his strength, weakened at once by shock and by starvation, suddenly collapsed. He died expressing his resignation to the will of the All Wise, and soothed, we would fain hope, by the knowledge that in two continents all who speak English would fain have preserved him if they could. The sorrow of his own people is hardly deeper or more sincere than that of Englishmen, for though the latter are Free-traders they regard the Protectionist illusion as an error in economics rather than a political offence, and they were hardly con- scious of the President's graver mistake, his habit of regard- ing himself as one bound by his position to be the funnel for the popular will. That, we feel convinced, was the key to the mind of William McKinley. Personally the kindest of men, always straight in conduct, and with a high sense of duty, he thought that duty compelled him always to keep his ear to the ground, so that he might, as head of the Execu- tive, interpret in action the general desire of the people. He thought they wished. that America should in all things stiffice to herself, and perceiving that, allowed his Protec- tionist ideas to develop into a sort of fanaticism, which, nevertheless, when he recognised the general desire for wider markets, he was prepared at their bidding to suppress. His very last speech before his death was in effect a promise that he would exchange Protection for Reciprocity ; and 'though he probably shared the movement of the popular mind, and had begun to recognise that if you will not buy neither can you sell, the sense that the people were marching like himself to a new conviction made that conviction appear to him not only more acceptable, but more wise. He was personally one of those men who alike from pity and from religions feeling abhor war ; but when he perceived that the scenes in Cuba had become abhorrent to the people he accepted the hard necessity, and when, after the sinking of the `Maine,' they would allow no longer delay he made war with all the energy he pos- sessed. He was said to be the slave of the Trusts ; but in reality he approved them because the people believed that in them was a source of prosperity, and had they changed that view he would have changed also, as he in great measure actually did about the standard of value. He had great bimetallist leanings till he saw that the whole commercial class, followed by a majority, was in favour of a single standard, and then he became a determined advo- cate of gold. He was perfectly sincere, but he held it his duty to be an interpreter, not a leader, of democracy. It is in this capacity that history will judge him, and it is worth while to consider for a moment how far be was wrong or right.
We hold with the English people that he was wrong, believing that Demos, like any other King, will decide rightly only if the advisers he trusts are sincere and give him always the benefit of their actual opinions. They are generally wiser than the mass ; they, and they only, are in possession of all the facts ; they are trusted by the Sovereign, whether he is a man or a multitude; and they are therefore bound as honest men to press their coaclusioni frankly, and if they are not accepted to resign. The wishes of the people con- stitute, of course, one factor in the formation of a sound judgment ; but it is only one, and in cases involving any Moral issue—for example, the choice between war and peace—it ought not to be the strongest. We hold Fox's judgment on the war with Napoleon to have been wrono. for the great Italian would never have rested until he had established a universal Monarchy, which would hay stereotyped mankind; but he was absolutely right ilea risking his party as well as his career by expressing the intense opinion he had formed. Moreover, it is held here, and, as we think, on sound grounds, that democracy is conscious of its own points of failure, that it sighs for leaders, and that the man who will not lead will never receive a full measure of its confidence. The Premier who will not or cannot form an opinion is therefore deprived of a portion alike of his power and his courage, both of which may in an hour of emergency be of vital importance to his country. And filially, it may be taken as certain that if leadership is not allowed the most competent of all will never rise, except by accident, to the headship of the State, which must, if that is the policy to be adopted, be served by second-rate men. That is the case in both the American and French Republics, though the record is broken by Abraham Lincoln, and in a less degree by Gambetta, and it is difficult to deny that both Republics have suffered through it, though in America the limitation in the functions of the central Government has in great measure concealed the fact from the world. In a country with such resources, without frontiers, and with no rebellious class, the average sense of the community suffices to produce prosperity, and till the hour of danger arrives the inadequacy of the chiefs of the State is scarcely perceived. It would, however, have been terribly perceived in America if Spain at first had been triumphant, and if President McKinley, as might have happened, had felt that his insight was insufficient for circumstances so grave.
To Englishmen it is hardly necessary to press this side of the argument, and yet it is not to be denied that there is another side. It is, in the first place, much more con. venient for any State to be able to do without leaders, for they are few and hard to discover ; while of the second. rate men there is at all times an abundant supply. It is not in England the Cabinet, but the Inner Cabinet which it is difficult to fill, and on the Continent the one Ministry which can always be got together is the Ministry of Affairs. In the second place, theory must be allowed some weight under every Constitution, and the theory of Democracy is that on grave occasions the mass of the community is wiser than any individual in it. Its instinct tells it what to do better than any man's counsel. If that idea is true—and it is difficult for those who know history to pronounce it entirely false—the " man with his ear to the ground," if only he has the right kind of ear, and honestly believes, as Mr. McKinley did, that his business is. to use it, can but rarely go wrong in important crises. To hear the undergrowl clearly and interpret it aright requires, no doubt, a special, and it may be a rare, faculty ; but the man who possesses it will not make great blunders, except when the people are hopelessly in the wrong. They often are, as, to take two well-known instances, when the people in this country beat Walpole about the Excise-duty, and when in France they clamoured. for war with Prussia ; but the American theory, is that this occurs rarely, and that when it does the people is still within its right. Why should it not run a risk, even a great risk, with its own ? On that theory President McKinley was an excellent, even a great, President, for he had a marvellous capacity for hearing and interpreting that undergrowl,, which he thought it the duty of his life to obey. And lastly, this mode of governing has one advantage only half perceived, that it increases the force of the State to an almost indefinite degree. Guidance may be wanting when the head of the State is always listening ; but the march can never be undecided, and the weight of the marching myriad thus kept at one with its foremost files must always be prodigious. When the head of the Executive and the people differ, and both are determined, everything, goes to pieces, all action is weak, and perseverance s. almost hopeless. When that head cannot be removed,. 1.t may therefore be that the most certain way of avoid" such a contingency is to listen. On the whole, though warmly in favour of the English method, we can under- stand stand why those who believe fully in democracy preer, the American method, regard Mr. McKinley as an alnissnbo ideal President, and will be slow to be convinced that t State is safe when there is no effort to secure the guidance of the ablest in it.
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