MR. ROOSEVELT AND POPULAR OPINION.
THEpast week has given a partial answer to an absorb- ing question. It was just over a year ago that Mr. McKinley's death placed Vice-President Roosevelt in a position of power and responsibility hardly less than that of the ruler of the German Empire. Not only Americans. but European politicians, especially Englishmen, were then suddenly confronted with the question,—What do we know of the new President ? What kind of a successor will he make to Mr. McKinley? It was a difficult question to answer. Mr. McKinley had set up for himself a particular standard, or rather a particular object at which to aim, and in the opinion of most Americans he had succeeded admirably ; he was, in short, an ideal President. But it was not certain that Mr. McKinley's standard would appeal to the mind of Mr. Roosevelt. Mr. McKinley con- ceived it to be the function of the President of the United States to wait on the will of the people; to interpret, that is, rather than to guide public opinion. He was a figure- head. In whatever direction public opinion happened to set, Mr. McKinley accentuated its expression ; and in watching the undercurrents of public thought, and in gauging precisely the depth and volume of this or that tendency, he proved himself an excellent judge of the character and the intentions and the capabilities of his countrymen. . He waited to make sure of the trend of public opinion before he gave his approval to the Trust system; he waited until he found the real wish of the nation in regard to the gold standard ; he changed his mind in regard to Protection only when he believed that he saw that popular feeling was in favour of reciprocal tariffs ; finally, he saw clearly that the mind of the nation would no longer put up with what was happening in Cuba, and against his own personal inclinations—for he was not the kind of man to like war, or to approve of militarism in any shape or form—he went to war with Spain, and when he went to war, did so with relentless energy and conviction.
That was the man whom President Roosevelt had to follow, and it was his ideals which had to a certain extent become impressed upon the minds of the people of the United States as natural to the position of President. Was Mr. Roosevelt likely to approve of such ideals, and would he, too, keep his ear to the ground in the same way as Mr. McKinley ? Would he try to hear what was coming a long time before it came, and anticipate and accentuate it, as Mr. McKinley did, by words and deeds spoken and done in public so certainly and skilfully as hardly to seem to follow, but rather merely to represent, popular opinion? It was always doubtful. Mr. Roosevelt was known to be downright, vigorous, original, and, above all, fearless. He was known invariably to mean what he said ; the question was whether he would invariably, or on most occasions, say what he meant. Would he, perhaps, decide that, rather than watch public opinion gradually drifting into this or that channel, he ought of his own initiative to drive it into the channel he believed to lie in the right direction ? Or would he decide that the old method was the safe, and indeed the right, method, and that he could best serve his country by following up the ideals of his predecessor And, of course, there followed an important corollary. If the new President adopted methods and ideals different from those of Mr. McKinley, would they be popular ? Would he be able to finish whatever work he began ? These were the absorbing questions which presented themselves twelve months ago to American and English thinkers, and, as we have said, they have now been at least partially answered. President Roosevelt has shown that he is a leader, and not a follower. He. has not watched popular opinion crystallise into belief, and proceed from conviction to action ; he has tried to mould public thought to his own notions. He has not been content to be a figurehead ; he is a steersman. From the first he has shown clearly that he intends to say what he means, and to do what he thinks best, regardless of whether or not his speech or action may commend itself to others. Take, for instance, his action in regard to Mr. Booker Washington. There is hardly any public question over which Americans think and feel so deeply as the question of colour. A black man to the majority of Americans is a being on a totally different plane from that of a white man; he is not, to put it brutally, a, man with whom decent people can sit at table. To English- m en that may seem strange and wrong, but the feel- ing is there all the same. Mr. Roosevelt flew in the face of existing American opinion by entertain- ing Mr. Booker Washington, the negro leader, at the White House. He evoked, of course, almost a yell of criticism ; but he has brought thinking men round to his views. Or take, as a second instance of Mr. Roosevelt's courage and independence of view, his expression of opinion in favour of the governmental control of Trusts. The Trust system may be a good servant, but it is a bad master,—that was the substance of his criticism; and in declaring against the present system, or perhaps rathe: against the principles which he believed made the system a wrong one, he knew that he was opposing the enormously powerful interests of the capitalists. Yet he stood out for what he believed to be right, even in the face of the tremendous opposition which he was certain to provoke, and what is the result ? That he has carried public opinion with him. The next election for the Presidency will take place in 1904. Meantime the States are making up their minds as to the nomination of candidates. Three weeks ago ten States, at their Republican Conventions, had decided on Mr. Roosevelt as their Presidential candidate ; but the important State, New York—Mr. Roosevelt's own State—had not given its verdict. Mr. Platt, the Republican " boss," had asserted that the State of New York would not declare for Mr. Roosevelt's nomination. That assertion did not find favour with the Republicans. As a consequence, Mr. Platt has had to " climb down " ; he has called a conference of the leaders of the " machine," and it has been decided that the State Convention shall recommend Mr. Roosevelt's ; nomination. Of course, anything may happen in two years. But it looks as if, in all human probability, the President of the United States who decided to strike out a line of his own, and not to follow Mr. McKinley's example of waiting for popular opinion to move, would still be President of the United States six years hence.
There is surely a lesson to be learnt from all this by our own statesmen, and it can be expressed in a sentence. All men like a man who is a leader, and it is best that public opinion should be led. When you get, as you get in the United States and in England, an enormous mass of floating democratic opinion, it is best for the democracy that it should have strong and far-seeing directors of that opinion. The people will follow if they are told where to go, and they want and like to be told where to go. They may be told to go here, or to go there, by this or that would-be leader, and they will seldom go wrong if both courses are plainly pointed out to them by their advisers. A democracy is always to a certain extent distrustful of itself. It is uncertain, in the first place, if it is left to itself, whether it properly grasps the whole of the facts of any particular problem it has to face. It is uncertain, again, as to what will be the consequences of its action if it takes action. Therefore it desires leaders whom it can trust, and whose verdict on this or that suggested policy it can accept. It is, of course, easily possible for a nation to exist for many years, and to attain a really large measure of internal prosperity, without having asked for or having been given leaders. But there will always come a time when some question arises about which it cannot readily make up its mind; or when, having made up its mind that something must be done, it is un- certain what to do. That is the situation in the United States to-day, and it accounts for the promptitude with which popular opinion has approved Mr. Roosevelt's fear- less straightforwardness. It is the situation in England. If our Ministers would only realise to what lengths the people would go—the willingness, nay, the eagerness, with which they would support any Minister determined, as we should like to be sure Mr. Balfour is determined, to sweep away all that they recognise to be antiquated and rusty and unfit for the days in which we live—we believe that they could do almost incalculable service to the country. They are not, we fear, convinced of this ; they are apt to mistake, as in the case of the Education Bills of 1896 and 1901, visible reluctance for real, deep, and determined opposition. If they would follow Mr. Roose- velt's example, they would find that, although seeming to defy, they were in reality, and as they ought to be, leading and informing popular opinion.
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