THE NEW FREEDOM.* IN this book the future President of
the United States reveals himself. It will be useful to students of politics here who could much more easily state the opinions of Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft than those of Dr. Woodrow Wilson. It was commonly remarked in Britain during the Presidential cam- paign that there was very little difference between the policy of the Progressives and that of the Democrats, and not much more between that of the orthodox Republicans and the Democrats. This book will not remove the impression. All parties profess to be in favour of bridling the Trusts and reforming the Tariff, and Mr. Roosevelt undertakes a peculiar and individual tilt at the Republican " machine." We are not at all sure that he bas not already smashed it. At all events, the Presidential election found it out of working order. All that Dr. Wilson says in criticism of Mr. Roosevelt's general aims is that while be professes to be muzzling the Trusts be has all along been working with their aid. Dr. Wilson's charge is expressly not a charge of insincerity but of self-delusion. We scarcely know after carefully reading Dr. Wilson's book whether he expects to find the Democrat machine something very different from and much more noble than the Republican machine, or whether he hopes drastically to transform it when he pulls the levers from White House. The spirit of his gospel is plain enough. He would end the sinister and unhappy marriage between business and politics. That is the burden of the book.
According to its sub-title the book is " a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a people." The sentences with which we have introduced the subject will explain what it is that the American people are to be emancipated from. In his preface Dr. Wilson says that his book is simply the more vital portions of his campaign speeches edited by Mr. W. B. Hayle. "I have left the sentences," he tells us, " in the form in which they were stenographically reported. I have not tried to alter the easy-going and often colloquial phraseology in which they were uttered from the platform." There is repetition, of course—necessary for emphasis, and therefore by no means to be deprecated—but we think the English reader will be most pleasantly astonished. For the " ensy-going" sentences turn out to be good, sound, hard-bitten English with a grateful use of metaphor. There is nothing from the first page to the last that a man of letters might not be content to have written, even though he had had leisure to co-ordinate his arguments and turn his phrases. We know then, for one thing, that the future President of the United States is a cultured gentleman. His method of controversy is pre- eminently gentlemanlike; he is fair, and knows no personal bitterness. If we wanted to compare him with any one in our own politics we could name only Mr. Balfour, for Dr. Wilson is a political philosopher who relies solely on ideas. Yet his free use of anecdote makes him in at least one respect very different from Mr. Balfour.
Dr. Wilson says that there is to-day a new United States. " Nothing is done as it was done twenty years ago." The life of the country does not centre upon governmental structure or the distribution of governmental powers, but upon the structure and operation of society itself, of which government is only the instrument. The community is at the mercy of a countless number of business corporations; these are the result of the intensive organization of capital and labour ; and the corporations influence the whole course of govern- ment. From the point of view of the individual this is highly unsatisfactory, because a man never knows exactly with whom he is dealing.
" There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been submerged. In most parts of our country, men work for them- • The New Freedom: a Call for the Retancipation of the Generous Energies of a People. By Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of Amenea. London : Chapman and Hall. C7s. ad. net.] selves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but as employees—in a higher or lower grade—of great corpora- tions. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations. You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men Who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. . . . So what we have to discuss is, not wrongs which individuals intentionally do—I do not believe there are a great many of those—but the wrongs of the system. I want to record my protest against any discussion of this matter which would seem to indicate that there are bodies of our fellow-citizens who are trying to grind us down and do us injustice. There are some men of that sort. I don't know how they sleep o' nights, but there are men of that kind. Thank God they are not numerous. The truth is, we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless. The modern corporation is not engaged in business as an individual. When we deal with it we deal with an im- personal element, a material piece of society."
One effect of the corporation system which may exert a wide influence on the national character is that while the majority of Americans share in the general prosperity, they do nothing to orginate it. They are nearly all cogs in the great wheels. Dr. Wilson believes that his countrymen are conscious of a great loss of political power in recent times.
"I live in one of the greatest states in the Union, which was at ono time in slavery. Until two years ago we had witnessed with increasing concern the growth in New Jersey of a spirit of almost cynical despair. Men said, We vote; we are offered the platform we want ; we elect the men who stand on that platform, and we get absolutely nothing.' So they began to ask, What is the use of voting ? We know that the machines of both parties are subsidized by the same persons, and therefore it is useless to turn in either direction.' "
The United States of to-day is in short—we are throughout summarizing Dr. Wilson's argument—" run " by guardians whom the American people did not appoint and do not want, but do not know how to get rid of. Yet " freemen need no guardians," and it is essential to bring about a great liberation and a great reconstruction.
What does Dr. Wilson suggest as a remedy ? We must confess that there is a considerable vagueness together with the great charm of his exegesis. Again and again we find our- selves saying, "The people elect their representatives. If they do not approve of their representatives why do they not elect others ? How can they hope to save themselves if they do not deserved to be saved?" The question seems almost too simple to be of any value, yet it is really pertinent.
Dr. Wilson gives a strong support to a proposal that the schoolhouses all over the country should be used for public debates by adults who would thus thresh out questions for themselves and make it known that they are watchful and jealous participators in the system of government. Let us suppose that a sort of Hardwicke Society for debates were established in every township in America, and ask ourselves what would happen. We cannot predict the result with certainty, but we know—if the analogy be of any service—what would happen in Britain : the mass of people would be led by glib and industrious speakers, who would stand for the existing political tendencies (except when they were Socialists); and an army of such workers and speakers would be simply the -agents of the great parties. The great parties would merely work the constituencies through the debating societies. Nothing would be changed. The main problems for the American nation to consider are the Tariff, the currency, and the conservation of natural resources. Dr. Wilson frankly says that the Democrats cannot introduce Free Trade, and do not propose to do so.
"There cannot be free trade in the United States as long as the established fiscal policy of the Federal government is maintained. The Federal government has chosen throughout all the genera- tions that have preceded us to maintain itself chiefly on indirect instead of direct taxation. I dare say we shall never see a time when it can alter that policy in any substantial degree; and there is no Democrat of thoughtfulness that I have met who contem- plates a programme of free trade. But what we intend to do, what the Rouse of Representatives has been attempting to do, and will attempt to do again, and succeed in doing, is to weed this garden that we have been cultivating. Because, if we have been laying at the roots of our industrial enterprises this fertiliza- tion of protection, if we have been stimulating it by this policy, we have found that the stimulation was not equal in respect of all the growths in the garden, and that there are some growths, which every man can distinguish with the naked eye, which have
so overtopped the rest, which have so thrown the rest into destroying shadow, that it is impossible for the industries of the United States as a whole to prosper under their blighting shade. In other words, we have found out that this that professes to be a process of protection has become a process of favouritism, and that the favourites of this policy have flourished at the expense of all the rest. And now we are going into this garden to weed it."
For the rest he advocates in politics publicity, publicity, and again publicity. Congress legislates too much by secret com- mittee. He is in favour of the " recall " of politicians, but not in favour of the " recall " of judges. Finally, he is a very stout friend—and here we come to what we think is much the most definite and practical thing in the book—of the Referendum. The Referendum would bring the power back to the people. It gives the people an absolute veto on legisla- tion which they do not like.
Previous page
