THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST IN AMERICA.
ENGLISHMEN who hear of the excitement caused by the recent Presidential Election in America, and of the virulence with which it was conducted, are astonished to find that no political issue was involved. It was a struggle between Republicans and Democrats ; but neither party put forward any principles that could be called distinctive. The Republi- cans offered battle on the field of Protection versus Free- trade ; but the Democrats declined the challenge, and had not a doctrine or a proposal to advance which any Republican [need have objected to. How, an Englishman asks, can so much heat be evolved over a personal issue between the merits of two men, neither of whom is great, one of whom is obscure, neither of whom represents a political cause ? The answer is that the personal issue was really a political issue, though not of a kind familiar to Europe. It touched no question of legislation, no line of foreign or domestic policy. It did not purport to turn upon Civil-Service Reform, the most important practical issue which the Americans have latterly had to consider, because both parties made equally warm protestations of their intention to sustain and carry out that reform. It was partly a struggle of two powerful party organisations, fighting, not for principles, but for office ; partly a campaign against one candidate, Mr. Blaine, on the score of the dislike entertained to him by a section of his own party. The personal issue became a political one, because Mr. Blaine was a representative man in whose person certain tendencies, long dormant in American public life, had to be resisted and overcome.
The charges of personal misconduct brought against Mr. Blaine were serious, and, if well founded, as some of them seem to have been, would show him to be, not perhaps corrupt in the vulgar sense of a man who takes or gives pecu- niary bribes, yet certainly untruthful and unscrupulous. But there was more than this in the opposition to him. He is, he has for a long time been, the type of what the Americans call a "machine politician," a man whose power rests not on administrative capacity, not on commanding eloquence (though he is a taking speaker), not on large political ideas, but on skill in the manipulation of party organisations, and in the management of men. He is like Disraeli, minus Disraeli's imagination and inventive power, but with more effusiveness, geniality, and bonhomie, qualities which are summed-up in America under the name of "magnetism." He is identified in the minds of the best among his countrymen with all the tricks of politics, artful tactics in Congress, wiliness in pulling the hidden strings which move men through their interests, effrontery in enunciations of policy which are in- tended to catch sections of the people, but remain devoid of practical result. He is the most brilliant specimen of those who are called "professional politicians," as opposed to statesmen ; and the contest with him was, therefore, a contest of the purer political elements in his own party with its worse and " professional " element,—a contest, in fact, between the good citizens and the politicians. It may be thought that the good citizens were, or ought to have been, a decisive force. Adding the whole strength of the Democratic Party, supreme in the South, and powerful in the Middle States, to the earnest and active Republicans who opposed the Republican candidate, ought not the defeat of the latter to have been certain ? How did it happen that the con- test was so wonderfully close, a majority of no more than twelve hundred in the State of 1•Tew York turning the balance ? Is not the fact that a candidate so unworthy came so near the Presidential chair an evil omen for the future of American democracy ? A bad symptom it certainly is, yet not so bad as European observers are disposed to conclude. There are several causes, not wholly discreditable to the American people, which serve to explain the support accorded to Mr. Blaine. The first is the strong prejudice against the Democrats, by which all the better classes in the Northern, Middle, and North-Western States have been governed since the Civil War. The Democrats were the allies of the Slaveholders, the opponents (to a large extent) of the effort to restore the Union by arms, the apologists, after the conquest of the South, of the acts of violence perpetrated on negroes and Northern settlers. Every exalted sentiment—the sentiment of humanity, the love of the Union, the passion for human equality—was arrayed against them, and enlisted on behalf of the great Republican party which Seward had organised and Lincoln had consecrated by his death. Sixteen years of steady decline in the morality of the Republican Party have not destroyed this feeling for it in the breasts of the mass of the steady, God-fearing people of the Northern and North-Western States, for during those sixteen years the Democrats have done little to improve their position, have produced no man of commanding ability or inspiring character, have been the authors of many mis- chievous measures, have continued to practise the old sordid methods of politics. Hence the idea of voting for a Demo- crat has remained shocking to most Republicans. You might as well expect an Irish Orangeman to vote for Mr. Healy, or an English country rector for Mr. Bradlaugh. A second reason may be found in the enormous strength of the American party organisations. Loyalty to party is a more potent influence than in England, bemuse there are fewer persons uncommitted to either party, and because the system of local party associations has been so energetically worked that nearly every citizen is, in moat parts of the country, enrolled under one or other party banner. It needs no small effort to break this bond of loyalty ; and the difficulty is even greater when the effect may be to turn out of office a number of your neighbours and old fellow-soldiers in the party cause. The party actually in power has, moreover, the advantage of a band of election-workers who are stimulated by motives of keen personal interest. Every office-holding Republican felt himself, in fighting for Mr. Blaine, to be fighting for his own bread and cheese. Democratic office-seekers had, of course, a similar motive, yet a weaker one, and without the advantages of an official position to help them.
The Democratic candidate was not a man to excite enthusiasm. There was nothing " magnetic " about him, nothing to touch the popular imagination. The best you could say of him was that his public character was unstained, his will firm, his administrative capacity respectable. He is in every respect an ordinary man, who would ne ver, so far as one can judge, have come to the top in English or French Par- liamentary life. Recent Presidents have usually had something notable about them. Lincoln was little known beyond his own State of Illinois ; but had excited the warmest admiration there by his honesty, his energy,his abundant stream of humour. Grant was the hero of the war. Garfield was an excellent speaker, and had led his party in Congress. Hayes was no doubt commonplace ; but Hayes came in under the influence of indignation at the Ku-Klux outrages, and Hayes, after all, was not elected, though ultimately seated in the Chair. His com- petitor, Samuel J. Tilden, was not what we should call a first- rate man, but he had been one of the first figures of his party for thirty years ; whereas nobody heard of Mr. Cleveland till he became Mayor of Buffalo four or five years ago.
Mr. Cleveland's chances were still further damaged by the scandals relating to his private life, so industriously, and some- times so brutally, disseminated. To Englishmen who remem- ber Nelson, and many more recent, if less conspicuous, instances of irregularity, and who recognised the nobility of Victor Emanuel's career, Mr. Cleveland's transgression does not seem one which, however regrettable, should damage his political prospects. But the American mind is so sensitive on these subjects that the Democrats must, on this score alone, have lost many thousand votes in every Northern State. In fact, had the Convention which nominated him known what all America knew a month later, he would never have been chosen to bear the party standard. Among those religious people who rose above party prejudice, many were heard to say, "I cannot vote for Blaine ' • I will not vote for Cleveland ;" and not a few of these, with that unwillingness to abstain which is so characteristic of the Americans, gave their vote to Mr. St. John, the Prohibitionist candidate, who was known to have not the remotest chance of success, but whose personal character and political platform commanded their respect.
One more cause must be added, and it is far from a pleasant one to admit. So much abuse is indulged in at these Presi- dential elections that a large proportion of the voters believe nothing that they hear about a candidate. They could not, indeed, disbelieve one accusation against Mr. Cleveland, because he had the manliness to confess it " right out." But a vast number refused to believe what we in England should deem the more serious charges against Mr. Blaine, satisfying their minds with the assurance that such charges would be made anyhow, whether they were true or not.
The above considerations may serve to diminish the alarm with which the friends of popular government contemplate the narrowness of the escape America has had. But it has been terribly narrow, and the position is still critical. Mr. Blaine is not extinguished ; he or someone like him may again threaten the country in 1888. Much will depend on the pos- sibility of keeping the Independent party together ; much upon Mr. Cleveland himself, If, yielding to the dangerous influences of the professional Democratic politicians, he should disappoint the expectations formed of a pure Administration,, the profes- sionals of the Republican party may retake the citadel from which they have just been driven.
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