LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—The most significant item of the American elections of November 8th, so far as enduring political lessons, and not mere temporary interests, are concerned, is the terrific effect of the secret ballot, under which three-fourths of the States voted, most of them for the first time. It instantly reduces the controlling party of the United States—with nearly half the voters, more than half the States, three-fourths of the wealth, and probably as large a part of the ability—to a mere New England faction, plus a scattered State here and there over the country, without a future, and without any distinctive bases for a future except those the country has twice beaten into ruin.
This could not happen, and did not happtn, to a party all of whose members supported it voluntarily. It seems certain that at least a hundred thousand men—eliminating recent acts and local issues—have for years wished to desert the party, but were held to it by the tremendous weapon of social opprobrium, added to actual intimidation and the fear of ruinous disfavour in business. No one who has not lived there can appreciate the moral courage it takes to turn open Democrat in a tribe-bound Republican community ; to turn Catholic in a Protestant one is really a light thing in com- parison. The party has, in fact, for years been like a corpse in a mound, retaining the form of man only by excluding the outer air.
But the conclusion I wish to enforce is that, for good or evil, the secret ballot emancipates the masses wholly from the power of the upper few ; either the power to plunder, or the power to coerce into accepting political guidance. In this else, it enables them to escape from keeping a party dominated by great manufacturing interests to rob them shamelessly under pretext of giving them back more in wages and social comfort; in another aspect, it certainly takes the controlling power from the ablest, most courageous, and most independent class, and gives it to the more timid and inefficient. Yet, again, no community is made up of moral heroes, and the change makes the majority their own real masters. The Spectator thinks it " monstrous " that a man should have power he is too cowardly to exercise in public. May I say, on the other side, I think it monstrous that the chance of heredity should enable a master who is ten times a coward to do as he will without risking a meal, while his underling risks beggary for his family if he refuses to be a political serf? The upper classes are largely open, not because they have more courage than the lower, but because they can afford to be, and because they were born to a place in which they could afford to be. I deny that I (for example) am more a coward than my neigh- boar because he has 210,000 a year in stocks, and I have only my salary; and I think it unfair that I should be called a coward for not liking to be a martyr, while he is landed as a hero for doing as he pleases when he has nothing to fear. At all events, this election shows that no privileged class can be built up by indirection under a secret ballot, and that it can be under either an open ballot or a viva voce system. This, independently of the question whether such a class is a good thing to have.—I am. Sir. &e..
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. FoRILEST MORGAN.
Previous page
