BOOKS.
A SCOTCH-AMERICAN ON _AMERICA.* No one who, undazzled by the glamour of big figures, surveys the -present condition and considers the recent history of the United States with a calm and scientific gaze, can fail to
• Handbook of Republican Institutions in ih; United States of America. By D. J. Bannatyne. London, Edinburg'', andliew York Blaakertad.
recognise the importance of the problems which are slowly maturing for solution on the further shores of the Atlantic.
The unparalleled prosperity, unparalleled alike in rapidity and volume, of the North American Union blinds the majority of Old World spectators to the great and serious perils which threaten its future, and menace the continued existence of a system which its founders endeavoured to assure by elaborate devices that become less and less efficient with the changing course of history. We hear of an ever increasing excess of revenue, of an ever widening area of cultivation, of a population growing at the rate of over a million every year, of enormous wealth, of a public debt rapidly approaching extinction, of the development of in- dividual liberty to the verge of licence, of the perfect triumph of democracy, untrammelled by monarchy, aristocracy, or priestcraft. But if this splendid veil be a little lifted, if these attractive scenes be a little shifted, a confusion becomes visible, over the mass of which loom portentous dangers, shadowy perhaps in outline, yet real and substantial, each decade defining themselves into harder forms, that the states- manship of latter-day Republicanism in vain attempts to cope with.
It is true that her geographical remoteness keeps America free from the web of political intrigue in which history has enmeshed the old world. But foreign complications are of small moment compared with the difficulties which beset the course of every nation's inner development. France, though shorn of two provinces, is still the geographical France in all essentials of 1789 ; while a hundred years of domestic struggle has brought her through a dozen Constitutions to one of the least satisfactory forms of national existence, —a despotic Republic tempered by party faction. In America, the course of events has been very different ; but in the able and striking introduction to this admirable Hand- book of Federal and State Republicanism, Mr. Bannatyne shows only too clearly that beyond the Atlantic, as on this aide of it, Democracy has not yet learned the secret of right government.
Had the picture been limned by an Englishman, the dark- ness of its shadows might have been attributed to some admixture of jealousy with any desire he could be credited with of presenting the truth. But Mr. Bannatyne is an American of Scotch extraction, and a New York solicitor to boot, who can hardly be suspected of exaggeration or mis- representation. Moreover, if he supports his case partly by the results of his personal experience, it is mainly by reference to official publications, to which no possible excep- tion can be taken, that he proves it. And his case, as we read it, is, put briefly, that socially and politically the American State is rotten, not to the core, which is still sound, but to a point within measurable distance of the core. It is so, not because the State is democratic, but because the democracy has not learned, and under the form which it has assumed is not likely to learn, how to protect itself and assure its liberties. Mr. Bannatyne gives a full account of the political and administrative systems of the State of New York, together with the text of its Constitution ; and since, as he justly says, " no State of the Union is more widely or deservedly known, or has exercised greater influence upon other States," he is well warranted in his choice of New York as the one best suited to illustrate—we may add, in the most favourable manner—State government in America. In New York, as in all the thirty- eight States of the Union, save Kentucky, universal manhood suffrage exists. Let us see what this means under the Con- stitution. In 1880, the population of the State was a little over 5,000,000, the voting population was 1,388,000, and of these electors, 636,000—we are quoting round numbers, omitting the hundreds—or considerably more than one-third, were foreign-born, leaving the native voters in a majority of leas than 200,000. Of a large proportion of the native-born electors, again, the parents were immigrants. A year's resi- dence in the State is the sole qualification for citizenship. Under conditions such as these a very large proportion of the electorate, considerable masses of which are constantly moving westwards, can possess little more than a scintilla of political knowledge, or take more than a passing or faint interest in the fortunes of the State. They become thus the easy prey of demagogues and " politicians." In the next place, elections are so frequent—elections of governors, lieutenant-governors, senators, members of assembly, executive officers, judges
(State and local), and district, city, town, and village officials of all kinds—that on all ordinary occasions they excite no interest whatever, and fall entirely under the control of pro- fessional wire-pullers, of the workers of " machine politics." In March last, Mr. Ivins, the City Chamberlain of New York, declared publicly that men were nominated for office solely because they were rich, and able and willing to buy office,—no doubt for business ends. "Important offices of honour, are either put up at auction or raffled away In 1883, John Kelly was assessed $50,000 for the nomination for Register. Judicial nominations were bought for as high as $30,000 "—although the judicial office is far from a remunera- tive one—"the nomination for District Attorney commanded $10,000 to $15,000." And so forth. In 1886 the election expenses in New York city were $700,000; at the Presidential election in 1884, $1,000,000 would not have covered them. At least twenty out of every hundred voters are said by Mr. Ivins to be under pay on election days, while the price of a seat in the Senate is about $50,000, nearly £10,000. In the same month of March last, Mr. Bishop showed that in New York city a sum of over $200,000 is annually paid by candidates for assessments, which, in addition to what the city officially spends, is dis- tributed among some 45,000 men, more than three-fourths of whom are, in fact, thus publicly bribed, constituting a fifth of the voting population. In other words, every sixth vote at least is publicly bought and sold.
The excessive frequency of elections is well illustrated in the case of New Jersey, of which the population in 1880 was but a little over eleven hundred thousand, not equal to that of a quarter of London. But its Legislature consisted of 21 senators and 60 assemblymen, and its administration of 21 sheriffs, 63 coroners, 21 county clerks, as many surrogates, collectors, and prosecutors, 63 judges, and about 1,000 justices,—say, total, 1,312 officials. " Add to these," says Mr. Bannatyne, " the number of State, town, village, city, and United States officers, and their subordinates, and the total number of office-holders forms a large per-centage of the whole population of adult age, one-half of which is presumed to be female." There are not only general elections in each November, but local elections at other times as well. " No wonder," as Mr. Bannatyne goes on to say, "that electioneering and politics form a kind of second nature in the citizen," who, " imbued from infancy with the excitement and wiles of politics," becomes " pre- maturely sharpened with knowledge of the baseness of man."
The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of New York State are elected every three years, the principal executive officers every two years. It is significant that the post of superintendent of prisons is not left to popular election, but is made by the Governor with the consent of the Senate. The Governor has no advisers of his own, and is in effect, and within certain very wide limits, an executive dictator. He and his Executive may be, and often are, in violent opposition. The people, meanwhile, practically abdicate their sovereignty in favour, in different degrees, of the Governor, the Executive, and the Legislature. They possess no continuous control over their own destinies as the English people do, and only a very modified and moderate control over them at any time, save at the moment of election of a Governor. And at that moment " machine politicians " intervene as at other elections and wrest to their own. uses almost the entirety of popular sovereignty. Under such conditions it is not surprising that liberty, in the sense of freedom from interference by others, is hardly known in America. Machine politics and the system of government they imply necessitate a widely-extended and deep-reaching system of espionage. A detective service of un- paralleled efficiency has accordingly come into existence, of which the politicians make full use. In private life, even, the citizen is never safe from the newspaper reporters, social de- tectives, of whom "there are swarms upon swarms both male and female ever on the alert for something
sensational," or, we may add, capable, by any kind of literary or other treatment, of being made so. Of the lengths to which these detectives will go, a singular instance is given by Mr. Bannatyne, extracted from the Daily Register (an official law journal of New York) of July 17th, 1886. As a pro- tection against the injustice and inefficiency of the poli- tical and legal systems of the various States, innumerable agencies and associations have been founded. Many of these give oonfidential information upon the character and position
of firms, corporations, and private individuals, professional or other. One of the most important of these publishes a sort of eipher directory of a very significant character, containing "ratings for legal ability, worth, reliability, of over 60,000 lawyers."
A similar directory seems almost as much wanted. for State Courts and judges as for lawyers. Mr. Bannatyne shows that the law-abiding classes are at a serious disadvantage. Suitors who from any cause have become obnoxious to the prevailing political party have far too often a hard fight to procure justice. In nearly all cases the aggressor is favoured at the expense of the victim. In others, the multitude of States and jurisdictions opens innumerable avenues of escape to the wrongdoer, while the extreme complexity of the various interpenetrating systems of law under which the American citizen lives makes him. a slave to the lawyers. Mr. Bannatyne can write of the country which has had fewer difficulties to deal with and greater advantages to profit by than any other country in the world,—" The law is for the rich, and permits the rich to. exhaust the poor man and to swindle him, because he is poor or without friends, or has no political influence." What follows this sentence is hardly credible. A stranger is robbed. The culprit is arrested, released on bail, and the prosecutor has to give security that he will appear to prosecute. He cannot do this, and is locked up. Months, years, pass by; in time the culprit dies ; then, and not till then, the unlucky prosecutor gets out. " Such was the fate," declares Mr. Bannatyne, "of an immigrant not long ago." Reform is less easy of accomplishment in the United States than in any country in the world. Even in Russia emancipation was effected almost without cost; in America, slavery could be. exorcised—and that imperfectly—only by the sacrifice of half- a-million of men's lives. On the ponderous inefficiency of American Legislatures, Mr. Dudley Field's remarks quoted on p. 11 should be studied. They deal with the legislation of New York, but the figures of New Jersey legislation are even more instructive. Since 1845 this little State, of which the population did not then probably exceed the present population of Manchester, and is now only a little over a million, has been provided with nearly 13,000 laws. The last (49th) Congress of the United StateP,, in sessions extending over some fifteen months, made some 7,000 reports on a mass of over 14,000 Bills, which ended in the passing of 1,431 laws, of which 264 only became actual law ; and of these, only a very few are of any importance. The enormous number of 132 Bills were vetoed by the President, twenty in excess of the whole number vetoed during the pre- ceding forty-eight Congresses. We have no space for comment. upon these facts,—perhaps they need none.
To conclude, a few significant items may be given, extracted( from the copious statistics furnished by Mr. Bannatyne. In 1866 no less than 1,500 homicides (not by misadventure) were reported, mostly as the result of quarrels, only 126 being
attributed to drink. There were 84 legal executions, 40' of the convicts being negroes ; and 133 lynchings, 71 of the victims being coloured men. Of course, each lynching would mean several (legal) murderers. In all, then, 1,640. persons met with a violent death, not through misadven- ture, in 1886—an enormous butcher's bill, only to be paralleled in Italian criminal statistics. The total popula- tion in 1880 of the United States was a little over fifty millions. Of these, over eleven millions possessed the franchise, eight millions being natives, and three millions foreign-born. The negro voters numbered one and a half million, and with the immigrants constituted a voting-power equal to half that of the native American element, which_ does not increase at equal rate with the other elements. The number of prisoners undergoing sentence was over 58,000, of whom 12,800 were immigrants. These statistics, however, appear to
be inexact. President Charles Adams has recently stated that crime is twelve times more rife among the foreign than among the native population, The total coloured population was six and a half millions, and the " natural black increase" is to the "natural white increase" as three and a half to• two, What will be the result of this rapid increase of the negro P " The• whites," says Mr. Bannatyne, " will be forced to keep the tide of emigration from coining north; and what," he pertinently asks, " will then become of Republican institutions ? "
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