THE DUTY OF CITIZENSHIP[62]

At the outset of our deliberations, Republican delegates, it may be interesting to recall the circumstances of two prior national campaigns in which political symptoms and dissensions were quite analogous to those existing to-day. When the Republican state convention met in 1880, and again in 1896, the outlook for the success of the Republican party had for a time been discouraging. In each of these campaigns there were many who feared that the party had been disrupted and that its usefulness might be coming to an end. In each campaign a wave of false doctrine, sentimentality and prejudice threatened to drown reason amid the prevailing excitement, clamor and declamation. But in each courage and soberness came before November, and the common sense, honesty, sanity and patriotism of the American people supported the sound principles and policies of national and constitutional government for which the Republican party stands.

During the first three months of the political campaign of 1880, it seemed as though the Democratic candidate would be elected. The nomination of General Hancock had been received with great demonstrations of enthusiasm. He was personally attractive and popular, and at the outset little attention was paid to the fact that the platform of his party was radical and had declared in favor of "a tariff for revenue only" with the consequent abandonment of the protective system. The Republicans were not united; in some states they were hopelessly divided. The defection was certain to be large. In many Republican states the Greenback party, with its financial and social heresies, had increased enormously in strength, and it had nominated a national ticket. Maine had been carried in September by a combination of Greenbackers and Democrats. In November the Republican party was to lose New Jersey, California and Nevada, and, for the first time since the Civil War, it would fail to receive any electoral votes from the states south of Mason and Dixon's line. Yet Garfield was elected by 214 electoral votes against 155 for Hancock. New York, which had gone Democratic in 1876 with a plurality of 32,700, went Republican in 1880 with a plurality of 21,000. Thus we see that, although there was then schism and dissension in the Republican ranks, and although the party lost Maine in September and New Jersey, California and Nevada in November, as well as every southern state, its candidates nevertheless were elected.

A consideration of the circumstances of the campaign of 1896 will prove even more instructive and encouraging. The Republican party was then divided and threatened with ruin by defections. The leaders in the national convention at St. Louis had courageously refused to bend to the demands and threats of a numerous minority, who were urging a radical platform and a radical candidate. A large number of Republicans had bolted, and they were loudly proclaiming that they alone represented the true and overwhelming sentiment of the party. According to them all else was fraudulent, and all who did not agree with them were accused of having been corrupted by the moneyed interests. It was evident that this faction had set out to rule or ruin their party, and, having failed to coerce it, were determined to overthrow it. They organized a new party, which they called the National Silver party; they assembled in convention at St. Louis amid excitement and posing and virtuous homilies about reformation and social uplift quite similar to those which we have heard during the past summer; they prophesied the death of the Republican party for its alleged betrayal of the people, and they proceeded to endorse the candidacy and views of Mr. Bryan. The Populist party, likewise largely composed of dissatisfied and discontented Republicans, held its national convention at St. Louis, went through similar political performances and emotional displays, and endorsed the Democratic candidate.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the enthusiasm in 1896 for Mr. Bryan. I comment upon it now in order that comparisons may be made and the lesson appreciated. Wherever he moved, immense and excited throngs pressed about him and wildly cheered his utterances. Much of the character of the present campaign was then in evidence. Bryan preached a social reformation and a crusade against established institutions, constitutional government and the supremacy of the law. He played upon envy, discontent and cupidity. He attracted to his standard the remnants of Coxey's "army," which two years before had marched to Washington, calling itself the "Army of the Commonweal of Christ." In our country such movements frequently mask in the robes of religion. Bryan denounced the President then in office. He assailed our judicial system, including the Supreme Court of the United States. He posed as a knight-errant and crusader who sought to uplift the poor and redress the wrongs of the nation. He repeated all the exploded claptrap of demagogues. And his eloquence, together with his apparent sincerity, made him a most dangerous candidate, far more dangerous than are our opponents of to-day.

The combination of Democrats and former Republicans in 1896 was more formidable than if their vote had been divided and the discontented Republicans, Populists and Silverites had nominated a separate ticket. It would have been easier to defeat a divided enemy. Plurality and not majority in each state determines the choice of presidential electors, although a majority of the electors is necessary to elect a President. The situation was very critical because the times were hard, many good reasons for discontent existed, thousands of workmen in every state were unemployed, and agitators and demagogues found ready response to their appeals in the hearts of men who were suffering from hunger.

Yet, even under such conditions, the defense of constitutional government and established institutions was safe in the hands of the thoughtful, sober and patriotic people of the country. A complete revulsion of public feeling took place before November. The Democratic party, which four years before had carried the nation with a plurality of 381,000 and the state of New York with a plurality of 45,500, was defeated by the Republican candidate with a plurality of nearly 604,000 in the nation and over 268,000 in the state. McKinley received 271 electoral votes against 176 for Bryan. That great success was secured in the face of the fact that ten western states which are normally Republican went Democratic; in other words, the Republican candidates were triumphantly elected in 1896 although Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming all cast their electoral votes for Mr. Bryan.

The task of the Republican party in these prior campaigns was to bring home to the people the vital importance to them of the issues of those campaigns. Similarly our task in this campaign is to convince the voters of the country that they are again called upon to preserve the industrial system upon which the wages, income and property of millions of American citizens are based, as well as to defend the constitutional representative government under which for more than a century we have maintained political, religious and individual liberty and have prospered beyond all nations.

At the beginning of this campaign and until recently many Republicans were disheartened. The menace to our institutions and future in the possible success of the Progressive party and the re-election of ex-President Roosevelt seemed as portentous as was the menace of Bryanism in 1896, in 1900 and in 1908. To some, therefore, it seemed at first as if it might be their patriotic duty to vote the Democratic ticket. Patriotism is ever more than party. But these Republicans now realize the folly of that course and the certainty that the Republican party will maintain its solidarity. We see clearly that the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt is doomed to defeat, and that only a desire to work injury to the Republican party continues the campaign of the so-called Progressives.

I have examined the published record as to contested seats in the national convention of the Republican party at Chicago, and I have endeavored to ascertain all of the facts. I believe that I have done so. In my judgment no fair-minded person who will take the trouble to read the evidence, who will look impartially at the facts and candidly seek to discover the truth, can doubt the fairness of the procedure or the correctness of the decisions. Most of the contests were wholly unjustifiable, if not fraudulent, and had to be abandoned. Indeed, it was shamelessly boasted by a well-known newspaper that the great majority of the contests had been gotten up in order to create a psychological effect, which, I take it, among plain people would mean the deliberate creation of a false impression. I will read you the language of one of the exemplars of the class of reformers who are too virtuous to remain in the Republican party and who profess to teach the people of this country political morality. The "Washington Times" contains the following in its issue of June 9, 1912: "For psychological effect as a move in practical politics it was necessary for the Roosevelt people to start contests on these early Taft selections in order that a tabulation of delegate strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand. In the game a table showing Taft 150, Roosevelt 19, contested 1, would not be very much calculated to inspire confidence, whereas, one showing Taft 23, Roosevelt 19, contested 127, looked very different. That is the whole story of the large number of southern contests that were started early in the game. It was never expected that they would be taken very seriously. They served a useful purpose, and now the national committee is deciding them in favor of Taft in most cases without real division."

Of the 238 contests finally filed on behalf of ex-President Roosevelt, 164 were abandoned. The contests which were not abandoned were decided on their merits. After studying the facts, I am convinced that the Taft delegates were legally and morally entitled to their seats. Unfortunately, the record is voluminous, and few will take the time or trouble to read the evidence. The cry of fraud is misleading many. But surely when such men as Senator Root and the presidents of Columbia and Cornell universities declare their conviction of the integrity of the procedure and of the decisions, we may well rest satisfied. In his speech notifying President Taft of his renomination, Senator Root said that neither in the facts nor in the arguments produced before the national committee, the committee on credentials, the convention itself, or otherwise, did there appear to be any just ground for impeaching the honesty and good faith of the decisions of the national committee. He further declared to President Taft that his title to the nomination was "as clear and unimpeachable as the title of any candidate of any party since political conventions began." Senator Root's high character, his great services to the nation and to the party, and his lofty sense of personal honor and responsibility, entitle him to have his word and his opinion under such circumstances unqualifiedly accepted by the people of the state of New York.

The preference of the majority of the national convention being clearly for President Taft, should this majority nevertheless have cast him aside and nominated Mr. Roosevelt because of threats of disruption of the party similar to those of 1896, or because in a few states ex-President Roosevelt had secured a larger primary vote than President Taft in hasty contests in which misrepresentation undoubtedly had led many astray? What course did patriotism dictate to the majority of the delegates? Ought they to have surrendered, and, because of clamor and threats of disruption of the party, put aside their own preferences and instructions for President Taft and nominated Mr. Roosevelt? There were reasons why this course would have been an act of folly as well as of injustice.

In the first place, the nomination of an ex-President of the United States for a third term would have been in violation of an unwritten rule established by Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, and followed ever since. The Republican party which, as a matter of sound principle and political ethics, had refused in 1880 to nominate ex-President Grant for a third term, notwithstanding his transcendent claims to the gratitude of the nation, could not stultify itself in 1912 by nominating ex-President Roosevelt for a third term.

The wisdom of maintaining this unwritten rule should be evident. The common sense of thoughtful, candid and patriotic men must convince them that nothing could be more dangerous than to permit any individual, however popular or eloquent, to wield the power of the presidential office for more than two terms. The New York convention of 1788, which ratified the Constitution of the United States, proposed an amendment to the effect "that no person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States a third time," and this undoubtedly has ever since been the sentiment of the people of this state, although it was defied in 1880 when an attempt was made to force the nomination of ex-President Grant for a third term, notwithstanding the fact that only five years before the Republican state convention had declared in its platform "our unalterable opposition to the election of any president for a third term."

There is not time to discuss the genesis or wisdom of this unwritten rule of political policy, which had never been violated by any political party until the nomination of ex-President Roosevelt by the Progressives. It is now pretended that there never was any such rule or principle of political policy and that Washington and Jefferson were governed solely by considerations of their own personal convenience. Three quotations from Jefferson's writings ought to be sufficient to explode this pretense. I take Jefferson because he is now one of the patron saints of the Progressive as well as of the Democratic party.

In January, 1805, shortly after his re-election, Jefferson declared as follows: "General Washington set the example of voluntary retirement after eight years. I shall follow it. And a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to any one after awhile who shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget a disposition to establish it by an amendment of the Constitution. I believe I am doing right, therefore, in pursuing my principle." Again in 1807 he wrote to the legislature of Vermont: "I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office." And fourteen years afterwards, in 1821, he published his "Autobiography," in which he said: "The example of four Presidents voluntarily retiring at the end of their eighth year, and the progress of public opinion that the principle is salutary, have given it in practice the force of precedent and usage; insomuch, that, should a President consent to be a candidate for a third election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views."

But aside from all principle and precedent, the promises deliberately made by ex-President Roosevelt to the people of the United States rendered his candidacy impossible without what seems to many a breach of faith. The facts speak for themselves.

On the 8th of November, 1904, President Roosevelt expressed to the people of the United States gratitude for his election, and appealed to them for their support and confidence during his second term, undoubtedly having in mind President McKinley's example in 1901, when he had declared that he would not accept a nomination for a third term if it were tendered him, and had pointed out that there were "questions of the greatest importance before the administration and the country, and their just consideration should not be prejudiced in the public mind by even the suspicion of the thought of a third term." President Roosevelt's language in 1904 was as follows: "On the 4th of March next I shall have served three and one-half years, and this three and one-half years constitutes my first term. The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form. Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination." In December, 1907, he reiterated this declaration, and added the following words: "I have not changed and shall not change the decision thus announced." Yet on February 24, 1912, he gave to the press a letter in which he said: " I will accept the nomination for President if it is tendered to me, and I will adhere to this decision until the convention has expressed its preference."

The statesman who had thus pledged his word could not break his promise to the people without sacrificing the good opinion of many citizens. And if the Republican national convention had joined ex-President Roosevelt in a repudiation of these solemn promises, it would have alienated a large body of voters who still hold in reverence the names and examples of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, and who still believe in political consistency and morality, and it would have put the party on the defensive throughout the campaign upon an issue of plain and simple morals. The Republican party, moreover, could not afford—in fact it would have been hopeless—to ask for the continued support of the country on any such terms.

Another reason why the majority in the Chicago convention should not have cast aside President Taft and nominated ex-President Roosevelt was because to have done so would have been an act of political treachery, ingratitude and dishonor. President Taft had earned and deserved renomination for great and faithful service to the nation and to the party. The custom generally followed had been to renominate a President who had served well and capably. The Republicans of New York had unanimously proclaimed in their platform of 1910, when ex-President Roosevelt himself controlled the state convention and dictated its policy: "We enthusiastically indorse the progressive and statesmanlike leadership of William Howard Taft, and declare our pride in the achievements of his first eighteen months as President of the United States. Each succeeding month since his inauguration has confirmed the nation in its high esteem of his greatness of character, intellectual ability, sturdy common sense, extraordinary patience and perseverance, broad and statesmanlike comprehension of public questions and unfaltering and unswerving adherence to duty." And nothing had occurred during the months intervening between this state convention and the national convention to shake that high and just estimate of the character and ability of President Taft. He had consented to run when he believed he could rely on the loyalty of Mr. Roosevelt as his friend, and subsequent withdrawal would have been a personal humiliation.

In practical achievements, President Taft's administration had been notably successful and efficient, although not spectacular. It may be asserted with confidence that the laws enacted by Congress never had been administered more effectively, honestly and impartially than under President Taft. Without turmoil or agitation, and without threatening Congress, he had accomplished more in three and one-third years than his immediate predecessor in seven and one-half years. He had shown a consistent policy of real progressiveness and constructive statesmanship. In every branch of government he had confirmed President Roosevelt's panegyric of 1908, when he urged the American people to elect Mr. Taft because of his pre-eminent qualifications for the office of President of the United States.

It may be true that after eighteen years of unselfish devotion and conspicuously efficient and faithful service to the American public, as solicitor general, United States circuit judge, governor of the Philippines, secretary of war and President of the United States, Mr. Taft had failed to secure popularity with the thoughtless, the discontented and the revolutionary, and with that part of the press that lives on sensationalism and muck-raking. But such popularity should hardly be the test of qualification for the great office of President of the United States. We know that Lincoln was so unpopular with the unthinking and impatient in 1864 that he despaired of re-election and that he expected defeat at the polls unless the army could save the day and change public opinion by some striking successes.

Popularity with the unreasoning and discontented was easily within the reach of President Taft had he sought it. In view of the prestige of his high office and the reverence it commands, he had only to practice the well-known arts of the demagogue by which crowds are stirred and led astray—as well known to him as to all who read history. He had only to issue from time to time high-sounding declarations about his staunch patriotism, his own virtue, his uncompromising veracity, his self-sacrificing loyalty to duty, the infallibility of his judgment, the purity of his motives, and the corruption and mendacity of his adversaries. He had only to rail at corporations, at the builders of the industries of the country and at bankers and capitalists, in order to secure the applause of envy and discontent. He had only to inveigh against predatory wealth to become at once the idol of predatory poverty. But his self-respect would not allow him to stoop so low and to pander to what is weakest, if not basest, in human nature, and his sense of duty would not permit him thus to degrade the great office of President of the United States.

The ingratitude of republics is proverbial; yet surely it would have been an unparalleled act of ingratitude for President Taft's own party to refuse him the renomination he had earned and deserved. The lesson that the repudiation of President Taft by his own party would have taught the country and future generations would have been demoralizing. It would have constituted a warning to all our present and future public officers that with us Americans conspicuously efficient and faithful public service goes for naught, and that Republican public officers, from the President of the United States down to the lowest, must not expect to be judged by their acts, ability and character, but as they have succeeded in cultivating the applause of the unthinking.

The great issues before the people in the present critical campaign, however, are far more important than the personal qualifications, claims, or merits of the candidates. These issues are: (1) the constitutional right and power of Congress to protect American industries and to preserve our present industrial system; (2) the threatened overthrow of the representative system of government in state and nation by the introduction of the initiative, the referendum and the recall, and (3) the assault upon the administration of justice in American courts.

Upon the tariff question, there is an irreconcilable difference between the principles of the Republican party and those of the Democratic party. The one insists that it is the legitimate duty and function of Congress in levying taxes to protect American industries and wages, whilst the other insists that Congress has neither the right nor the power under the federal Constitution to do so. I shall assume that political platforms, although they may not be binding programmes, certainly are intended to embody a declaration of the political faith and principles in which the respective candidates believe and which they intend to represent. If this be not so, then why are platforms adopted?

The platform of the Republican party unqualifiedly pledges the party and its candidates to a protective tariff with duties so adjusted as adequately to protect American industries and wages. It concedes that readjustments must be made and that excessive rates should be reduced, but it insists that, in order to do so intelligently and fairly, correct information is indispensable. It favors securing this information by an expert commission and a non-partisan tariff board. It seeks the withdrawal of the tariff from politics in order that each industry may be dealt with on its merits by non-partisan commissions. It indicts the Democratic party for its refusal to provide funds for the continuance of such a tariff board and for the reckless and sectional tariff bills passed by the Democratic House of Representatives which wholly disregard the protection of American interests.

Senator Root declared at the national convention that the Democratic party did not want to ascertain the facts upon which a just protective measure could be framed, but intended that there should be no protection for American industries, and he further declared that the Democratic House of Representatives had framed and passed a series of tariff bills for revenue only with complete indifference to the absolute destruction that their enactment would bring upon great American industries. He asserted that "the American people have now to pass, not upon the abuses of the tariff, but on the fundamental question between the two systems of tariff-making."

This challenge the Democratic party met and answered in the first and cardinal plank adopted by its national convention at Baltimore, which pledged the party and its candidates to the ultimate attainment of the principles of free trade, because of the absence of power in the Congress of the United States to protect American labor and American industries. The plank reads as follows: "We declare it to be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the federal government, under the Constitution, has no right or power to impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." And there can be no doubt that this declaration was assumed not only to represent the present free-trade policy of the Democratic party but to be in full accord with Governor Wilson's personal views as an out-and-out free trader.

The people of the United States are, therefore, now asked by the Democratic party to vote in favor of the proposition that, no matter what foreign competition there may be, even from Asiatics, the American national government has neither the right nor the power to protect a single industry or a single workman. Such a proposition may well amaze and delight foreign countries, and no wonder they all desire the success of the Democratic party. Every other national government not only has the power to protect its industries, but has again and again exercised that power whenever the interests of its people demanded protection. The power in one form or another is being exercised to-day against American products by almost every government in the world, including the colonies of England, as witness Canada. The power would be exercised by England again to-morrow if it should appear to be for her interest to do so. Yet, no matter that our factories may be closed and our wage-earners thrown out of work as in 1894, 1895 and 1896, no matter how easily Europe and Asia could make our country their dumping-ground and could make a prey of our necessities after closing our workshops and destroying our industries, no matter how beneficial to all classes it may be to have a diversity of industries—the Democratic party, nevertheless, proclaims that our national government is powerless, and that there is neither the right nor the power to enact a tariff except for revenue.

We Republicans firmly believe that if there be one feature or element of right and power within the spirit and scope of the Constitution of the United States, and clearly vested in Congress, it is the right and power to impose duties for the purpose of protecting American industries and American labor. The very first tariff act, approved July 4, 1789, one hundred and twenty-three years ago, declared that one of its purposes, one of its objects, one of its inducing motives, was "the encouragement and protection of manufactures." Washington approved and signed that bill. Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe—all of them of the generation that framed the federal Constitution—recognized the existence of the power to protect and recommended the protection of American industries. But the American people are now asked in 1912 to vote for a party and a platform which repudiate both the right and the power of Congress to protect American workmen, farmers and manufacturers.

It is impossible in this outline of issues adequately to discuss the principles and policy of a protective tariff. The details of that important and vital subject must be taken up and analyzed at other times. Generalizations would be of little value. The facts are readily at hand, and they demonstrate that the material welfare of the country and of nearly every class and section has been promoted by the protective policy, and it will continue to be so promoted. Although we may now be willing to face free competition with Europeans, we cannot be blind to the menace and danger of free competition with Asiatics. Just across the Pacific ocean, with constantly cheapening freight and passenger rates, are populations of 50,000,000 in Japan, 450,000,000 in China, 300,000,000 in India—800,000,000—who will furnish efficient labor at wages ranging from 10 to 30 cents a day for twelve hours' work on the same kind of machines at which American men and women are now working. Shall we open the flood-gates? Shall we elect as President the historian who, but a few years ago in the quiet and impartial atmosphere of his study, declared to the world his sympathy for needy Asiatics and his opinion that "the Chinese were more to be desired, as workmen if not as citizens, than most of the coarse crew that came crowding in every year at the eastern ports"?

This generation has had one bitter experience of Democratic tariff legislation. In 1892, the Democratic party was, for the first time in thirty-two years, placed in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. It came into office committed to free trade, as it would now again come into office pledged to free trade. It passed the Wilson bill in August, 1894, and thereby took its first step towards the abandonment of the policy of protection for American industries. There followed, principally as the direct result of this Democratic tariff legislation and the antecedent menace, an acute period of industrial and financial depression. I had supposed that the fateful years 1894, 1895 and 1896 would never be forgotten by those who suffered through them. As Governor Wilson himself well said in his "History of the American People," in describing this period of misery: "Men of the poorer sort were idle everywhere, and filled with a sort of despair. All the large cities and manufacturing towns teemed with unemployed workingmen who were with the utmost difficulty kept from starvation by the systematic efforts of organized charity." This was also a time of unprecedented social unrest and discontent and of Coxey's ragged "Army of the Commonweal of Christ" crying for food and work. It was a period of misery and depression, of popular discontent and disturbance, of strikes, riots, destruction of property, murder and maiming in industrial disputes. No one could deny, as the historian pointed out, that the country had fallen upon evil times and that American workmen found it harder than ever to live.

We have only to recall to the people's minds the conditions of unemployment, poverty and misery which followed the last tariff legislation of the Democratic party, and compare conditions as they exist to-day. The people of this country will make a terrible mistake and a frightful blunder if they now vote to run the risk of a repetition of those days under the delusion that the currency system of the government was the cause of the business depression and misery that followed immediately upon the election of Cleveland in 1892 and the passage of the Wilson tariff law in 1894.

Many are now telling the people that the tariff is solely responsible for the high cost of living and for the prevalence of social unrest and discontent. Such phenomena are world-wide and exist abroad as much as, if not more than, they exist here. In England, which has no protective tariff, the complaint against the high cost of living has been even louder than here. The real causes of the increase in the cost of living with us undoubtedly are: (1) enormous increase in the world's supply of gold, necessarily diminishing the purchasing value of the dollar, for the world's gold production, which from 1850 to 1890 averaged $120,000,000 per annum and was $130,650,000 in 1891, increased to fully $461,000,000 in 1911, (2) rapid increase of population without a corresponding increase of the production of food and other necessaries of life, (3) flocking to the city and abandoning the farm, (4) appreciation in land values, (5) increase in the price of raw materials, (6) higher rates of wages and decrease in the number of hours of work, (7) better standards of living, (8) exhaustion of some sources of supply, (9) extravagance in public expenditures, and (10) withdrawal of armies of civil servants from productive industry. These are the principal and controlling causes that tend to the higher cost of living; they are world-wide, and, if explained, they will be easily understood and recognized by intelligent and candid business men and workmen, who will at once perceive that these causes will not be removed in any degree by free-trade legislation. Last year serious disturbances occurred in Europe as a result of the prevailing high cost of food supplies there, and the British board of trade is now making an investigation into the cost of living, not only in England but also in Germany, France and Belgium. In fact, an international commission is at this moment inquiring into these causes. How preposterous it would be to say that the American protective tariff was the cause of the high cost of living in free-trade England or elsewhere in Europe!

Nor is the protective tariff in any sense responsible for the spirit of social unrest and discontent except, perhaps, in so far as prosperity begets discontent and multiplies appetites. Throughout the civilized world in recent years there has developed a spirit of social unrest and discontent, of disregard of law, and of disrespect for moral principles and religious beliefs. To those who look below the surface, it is more and more evident that this world-wide symptom is due, in greatest measure, to the spread of Socialism. According to the teachings of the Socialists, avowed or unavowed (for many who are preaching its doctrines would resent being called Socialists), our entire social system and the system of laws under which we live are unjust and should be upset, property rights should be destroyed, and religious beliefs, which are the principal source of our respect for law and order and the rights of property, should be broken down. As an American student and writer has said, a single passage from Liebknecht stands fairly for opinions that may be quoted from twenty authoritative socialist sources in Europe. That passage is as follows: "It is our duty as Socialists to root out the faith in God with all our zeal, nor is any one worthy the name who does not consecrate himself to the spread of atheism." I believe that few American Socialists have gone to any such extreme, but such has certainly been the tendency and teaching of Socialism in Europe.

Unfortunately the atmosphere of the present campaign is calculated to obscure and hide the true issues in controversy and the real danger that lurks under so much noise, declamation and enthusiasm. An avowed assault and an open declaration of war on society, on our form of government, or on our courts of justice would bring the points so clearly before the American people that none of us could for a moment doubt the outcome. We Republicans would hail and welcome an open attack, because we know that the people would then quickly and overwhelmingly rally to the support of our party. The more openly constitutional government and our social system are attacked, the more strongly will they become cemented in the affection and reverence of the people.

Most of our political and social institutions which are now being assailed as antiquated are founded on truths which ought ever to be self-evident. These truths sound trite, but "trite truths are often the most valuable truths, though sometimes divested of force by their very triteness." We are constantly hearing talk about the principles of the Constitution being antiquated in the eyes of these modern iconoclasts, and the other day a leader of the Progressives in this state, who is himself a lawyer, referring to the Progressive judicial nominations boasted that they had selected men who did not believe in a "dead constitution." Yet these candidates are ready to accept a judicial office which they could not rightly fill for a minute without taking an oath to support the Constitution in which they do not believe.

When a truth, be it political, moral, or religious, is once discovered and established, it is eternal; it loses none of its vitality because it has grown old; it never dies. If some religious Progressive—and our political Progressives affect much of the religiously emotional—should now preach a new religion and proclaim that existing religions and their restraints should be cast aside simply because they are old, the dullest man would readily see the utter fallacy and wickedness of such an argument. Imagine any one seriously arguing that the Ten Commandments are worthless and dead as rules of human conduct and self-restraint because they are four thousand years old and were first enunciated in an age not so rapid as our own—in an age when there were no printing presses, no steam engines, no electricity and no talking machines! Yet, so long as our civilization endures, so long as human intelligence lasts, so long as religion shall continue to comfort and sustain and uplift men and women, so long will the Ten Commandments be sound and true rules of conduct and the fundamental basis of all religions. Likewise as to the great political documents evidencing the progress of the human race upward towards liberty, like Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States: they embody and declare principles of political justice and fundamental truths which are eternal; and whilst majorities at times may ignorantly and recklessly disregard them or cast them aside for temporary objects, they are as eternal and imperishable as are the Ten Commandments.

Of the many revolutionary schemes in the Progressive platform, both national and state, one of the most dangerous and far-reaching is the proposal to destroy the representative character of our government by substituting direct action by the people in place of action by legislatures and officers elected by the people. This is to be accomplished through the initiative and the referendum. The movement is doubly important at the present time because, as is well known, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, after teaching directly the contrary for many years, has become a recent convert to these ideas. Although such a scheme might be beneficial or harmless in the little town meetings of New England, in small municipalities, or in agricultural states having a homogeneous population less in number than some of the counties of the state of New York, the initiative and the referendum would be wholly unsuited to an empire such as ours with a population of nearly 100,000,000, or to a state such as New York with a population of nearly 10,000,000. Would it not be absurd and preposterous to have the thousands of bills annually introduced in Congress passed upon by the people at large, and would it not be equally absurd and preposterous for a state like New York, passing hundreds of bills every year, to give a small minority the right to compel the submission of every statute to the vote of the people? Would it not be little short of calamitous to have those least qualified to understand and appreciate the changes they were making pass upon and control legislation? The result would be chaos.

The great men who founded our system of constitutional government were thoroughly familiar with the theory and operation of pure democracy or direct action by the people, as distinguished from representative government. They saw the past failures of pure democracy and the danger of any such system, and they deliberately declined to adopt it. In speaking of "the equal rights of man," Jefferson declared that "modern times have the signal advantage, too, of having discovered the only device by which these rights can be secured, to wit,—government by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives chosen by themselves."

The plain truth is that the trouble with our legislatures and with Congress is the character of many of the men whom the people elect. The remedy is in the hands of the voters. If they will elect capable and honest men to legislative, executive and judicial office, we shall have a cure at once. We need a remedy, not a poison.

Those who urge the introduction of the initiative, the referendum and the recall base their argument on the ground that some of our legislators and elective officers are incompetent or dishonest, and that, therefore, the people should reserve the right to control their actions and remove them. But if our legislators or other elective officers are incompetent or dishonest—if they are not truly representative of the people who elect them—then obviously the fault lies with those who choose them, and the remedy is to take such measures as will ensure the election of competent, honest and representative men. If the people are now too busy to concern themselves with the selection of honest and capable representatives, is it reasonable to expect that they will concern themselves about the merits of hundreds of statutes which they do not half understand, or about the qualifications of the officers they have elected and would recall? The fault is not with our representative system of government, but either with the party organizations that often nominate incompetent or dishonest men, or with the voters who tolerate such nominations and elect such candidates. Our system of government, as every system of free government, is based on the assumption that the people will conscientiously exercise the elective franchise, and unless we can depend upon an honest, sober-minded and patriotic majority to exercise that franchise, our system of government must ultimately prove a complete failure. The conscientious exercise of the elective franchise is not merely a privilege—it is the highest duty of citizenship. With the great increase in population, political parties and party organizations undoubtedly have become a practical necessity, and leadership is equally necessary; but it has also become indispensable that these party organizations shall be conducted honestly so as to represent truly the wishes of their party constituents. The urgent duty of citizenship is to see to it that these party organizations are conducted honestly and in a representative manner; but this is not to be accomplished by disrupting or destroying the great parties. Instead of pulling down the temple, we should drive out the money-changers. Instead of killing we should cure. What we urgently need is legislation providing for fair and honest party primaries and facilitating independent candidacies, and then we should go farther and impose a penalty or tax upon all qualified citizens who fail to cast a ballot at the annual primaries and elections prescribed by law.

The initiative, the referendum and the recall would not cure present evils, but would in fact only intensify and perpetuate them. The power and control of unrepresentative and irresponsible party machines would be largely increased instead of being curtailed. Better men would not be nominated and elected, but quite the contrary; the self-seeker, advertiser and manipulator alone would be nominated. The exercise of the initiative, the referendum and the recall would be determined by exactly the same people who now control our nominations and elections. It is absurd to suppose that the very men who so often choose incapable or dishonest representatives or neglect to vote at all would exercise greater efficiency in supervising legislation, in recalling public officers and judges, or in setting aside judicial decisions.

Equally absurd is the idea of legislation by popular vote. The importance of framing laws and constitutional amendments in clear and exact language and the impracticability of doing so without careful consideration and discussion and comparison with existing provisions, as in legislative committees, must be recognized by all thinking men. Our system of laws is becoming more and more complex every year, and unavoidably so. The people at large cannot be expected to know and understand a great and extremely complex system of laws, and it is no reflection on them to say that they cannot grasp the details of legislation any more than it would be to say that there are few men in the community competent to administer as judges the unavoidably intricate system of laws under which we live.

We have only to look at recent experience in the state of New York in regard to the adoption of constitutional amendments, the most important function that can be exercised by a voter, to appreciate the folly of the proposed remedies. The total vote for and against these amendments has frequently been less than one-half—and at times barely one-quarter—of those who actually voted at general elections. Thus, to take three recent experiences: the total vote cast in 1909 on an important constitutional amendment was only 477,105 as against a total vote the year before of 1,638,350; the total vote in 1910 on another important constitutional amendment was 664,892 as against 1,445,249 votes for the gubernatorial candidates, and seven amendments submitted in 1911 were defeated with an average total vote of 621,678. Similar and even more striking experiences will be found in other states. Is it likely that there would be a fuller or more representative and intelligent expression of public understanding in regard to complex legislative enactments, or in regard to the recall of judges or other public officers, or of judicial decisions than we find now in the case of important constitutional amendments?

To render judges subject to recall would be utterly destructive of the character and independence of our judiciary. No self-respecting lawyer would serve on the bench under such conditions. An upright judge should fearlessly declare and enforce the law without regard to popular agitation or political pressure. Frequently he is called upon to decide between the individual on the one side and a clamorous majority on the other side of a case before him. Take, for example, our situation in New York with Tammany Hall controlling a majority of the voters of the city. The legislature at the dictation of Mr. Murphy passes another infamous Levy Election Law avowedly intended to prevent independent nominations even for the bench. The judges declare the act unconstitutional and protect the minority in their rights, just as we saw them protecting the Progressives a few weeks ago. According to Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Straus, however, Tammany Hall should have the power to punish these judges by recalling them and should have the right to pass such disgraceful and tyrannical legislation by resort to the initiative and the referendum! Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of a scheme more surely calculated to shatter all our constitutional rights, as well as all certainty in the law. Chief Justice Marshall would have been repeatedly recalled for unpopular decisions which are now universally applauded even by the Progressives. Imagine the spectacle of recalling a Cullen or a Gray because he had dared to decide against the clamor or wishes of a majority controlled by Tammany Hall!

I have nowhere seen a stronger statement of the objections to the recall of judges than in John Stuart Mill's work on "Representative Government," published in 1861, where he said: "If a judge could be removed from office by a popular vote, whoever was desirous of supplanting him would make capital for that purpose out of all his judicial decisions; would carry all of them, as far as he found practicable, by irregular appeal before a public opinion wholly incompetent, for want of having heard the case, or from having heard it without either the precautions or the impartiality belonging to a judicial hearing; would play upon popular passion and prejudice where they existed, and take pains to arouse them where they did not. And in this, if the case were interesting, and he took sufficient trouble, he would infallibly be successful, unless the judge or his friends descended into the arena, and made equally powerful appeals on the other side. Judges would end by feeling that they risked their office upon every decision they gave in a case susceptible of general interest, and that it was less essential for them to consider what decision was just, than what would be most applauded by the public, or would least admit of insidious misrepresentation."

Probably no more crude, impracticable, or absurd scheme was ever proposed by any one claiming to have the first and elemental ideas of American constitutional government than the proposition to render subject to recall or reversal by a majority vote all decisions in constitutional cases affecting statutes passed under the police power. The term "police power" is the most comprehensive that could have been employed. Most of our individual rights are covered by that term; and when the Progressives say that a statute passed under the police power shall be valid and enforceable, notwithstanding the courts may declare it to be arbitrary, unjust and unequal and hence unconstitutional, if a temporary majority see fit to overrule the courts, they propose that practically all the most vital and cherished of our supposed inalienable individual rights—our personal and religious liberty—shall in final result be at the mercy of any temporary majority. In ultimate analysis, the proposition for the recall of judicial decisions would mean that the majority should act as umpire in any dispute as between themselves and the minority.

The hatred of the courts which the Progressives now share in common with the Socialists, Anarchists and Populists, and that part of organized labor and labor unions typified and represented by such men as the McNamaras, the Debses and the Parks (who in truth shamefully misrepresent the great majority of law-abiding and patriotic members of these organizations), has forced into this campaign an unparalleled attack upon our judicial system and the administration of justice.

When the New York state Progressive platform was first given to the press on September 3rd, the judiciary plank read as follows: "We heartily indorse the declarations of our national platform respecting the judiciary and favor their embodiment in the organic law of the state. We condemn the past attitude of the New York Court of Appeals toward various important and humane measures of social legislation."

The unprecedented indecency of this attack upon the Court of Appeals immediately produced such a storm of indignation throughout the state that the clause appears later to have been amended so as to eliminate that sentence. The final form given to the public omits this denunciation of the highest court of our state, and confines the plank to the proposals of the national platform. I have time now to discuss only two of these planks.

The Progressives declare in their extraordinary and revolutionary platform: "We believe that the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes should be prohibited, when such injunctions would not apply when no labor disputes existed." This should be compared with substantially the same declaration in the Bryan platform of 1908, in which the Democratic party declared: "We deem ... that injunctions should not be issued in any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved."

It must seem incredible that the cultured and talented man who now stands on the Progressive platform soliciting the votes of the people was the President of the United States who in a formal message to Congress on January 31, 1908, on the subject of injunctions in labor disputes, used the following language: "Even though it were possible, I should consider it most unwise to abolish the use of the process of injunction. It is necessary in order that the courts may maintain their own dignity, and in order that they may in an effective manner check disorder and violence. The judge who uses it cautiously and conservatively, but who, when the need arises, uses it fearlessly, confers the greatest service upon our people, and his pre-eminent usefulness as a public servant should be heartily recognized."

During the campaign of 1908, President Roosevelt fiercely denounced Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gompers for the plank above quoted but which he has now adopted. He then wrote a long letter to Senator Knox in which he exposed the danger and dishonesty of this plank. It would be necessary to read the whole of the letter in order to appreciate President Roosevelt's indignation and horror that Bryan and Gompers should favor such a proposition. I shall quote only a few sentences as samples of the whole. President Roosevelt then wrote as follows: "This is the plank that promises the 'remedy' against injunctions which Mr. Gompers asked of Mr. Bryan's party. In actual fact, it means absolutely nothing; no change of the law could be based on it; no man without inside knowledge could foretell what its meaning would turn out to be, for no man could foretell how any judge would decide in any given case, as the plank apparently leaves each judge free to say when he issues an injunction in a labor case whether or not it is a case in which an injunction would issue if labor were not involved." Later the President continued: "Mr. Gompers, now Mr. Bryan's open and avowed ally, has, in the letter here quoted, attacked the federal courts in unmeasured terms of reproach because, by a long line of decisions, the equity courts have refused to make an outlaw of the business man, because his right to carry on a lawful business under the peace of the law has been protected by the process of injunction, because in a word one of the most vital and most fundamental rights of the business world—the right of a business man to carry on his business—has been sustained and not denied by the processes of the courts of equity. This sweeping attack of Mr. Gompers upon the judiciary has been made in a frank and open effort to secure votes for Mr. Bryan." Mr. Roosevelt concluded the letter as follows: "But there is another account against Messrs. Bryan and Gompers in this matter. Ephraim feedeth on wind. Their proposed remedy is an empty sham. They are seeking to delude their followers by the promise of a law which would damage their country solely because of the vicious moral purpose that would be shown by putting it upon the statute books, but which would be utterly worthless to accomplish its avowed purpose. I have not the slightest doubt that such a law as that proposed by Mr. Bryan would, if enacted by Congress, be declared unconstitutional by a unanimous Supreme Court, unless, indeed, Mr. Bryan were able to pack this court with men appointed for the special purpose of declaring such a law constitutional."

The Progressive plank against the power of the courts to punish for contempt is equally revolutionary. It declares in favor of depriving the courts of the power to punish for contempt except after a trial by jury.

The crusade to deprive the courts of the power to punish for contempt began at the time of the Chicago strike of 1894 when Eugene Debs and his fellow-conspirators were found to be guilty of open, continued and defiant disobedience of an injunction order of the United States court which had been duly served upon them. It will be recalled by most of you that if the courts had not then had power to punish for contempt without a prior conviction by a jury—and imagine the chance of an impartial jury-trial during the continuance of a great riot—the Debs party would have had the city of Chicago and the great railway commerce passing through it completely at its mercy. All who want to know the facts and to realize the danger from the condition of affairs then existing should read Mr. Cleveland's account of the strike in his book on "Presidential Problems," published in 1904, and the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upholding the punishment of Debs and his associates for contempt.

The power of the courts to punish for contempt has, from the earliest history of jurisprudence and as far back as the annals of our law extend, "been regarded as a necessary incident and attribute of a court, without which it could no more exist than without a judge," and "a court without the power effectually to protect itself against the assaults of the lawless or to enforce its orders, judgments, or decrees against the recusant parties before it, would be a disgrace to the legislature, and a stigma upon the age which invented it." The Supreme Court of the United States declared in the Debs case that "this is no technical rule. In order that a court may compel obedience to its orders it must have the right to inquire whether there has been any disobedience thereof. To submit the question of disobedience to another tribunal, be it a jury or another court, would operate to deprive the proceeding of half its efficiency."[63]

The bait now offered to the lawless and misguided among the laborers of America by Mr. Roosevelt is the abolition of the only effective means of preventing violence and the destruction of property in labor disputes, first, by taking away from the courts the power to issue injunctions and, secondly, by emasculating the power to enforce obedience to their orders and judgments. Of course, if any such revolutionary and anarchistic measures were now embodied in the organic law of this state, as proposed by the Progressive state platform, the community would be placed completely at the mercy of the violent and the lawless. Is it not lamentable and humiliating to see an ex-President of the United States and an ex-member of his cabinet and ex-ambassador thus pandering to the mob spirit for votes?

In conclusion, I want to add that the American people know where President Taft and Vice-President Sherman stand on every great question before the people. They have been tried and not found wanting. These candidates can be trusted and relied upon to keep every pledge of their party's platform. If anybody can now tell where Governor Wilson stands, except as a free trader, a radical and an opportunist, he is much more discerning than most of us are. The glory of our party is that for fifty-six years, in victory and in defeat, it and its candidates have stood consistently and uncompromisingly for the principles of human liberty and human progress. It is still the party of principle and of progress, as it is the party of protection for American labor and industry. President Taft would be entitled to the gratitude of the whole nation, irrespective of party, if the only service of his administration had been his attempt in good faith to withdraw the tariff from party politics, to introduce some system in fixing the amount of necessary protection to be determined by experts and non-partisan boards, and to establish business-like methods of economy and efficiency in every department. Great honor, too, will the future historian record to his credit when recounting that in a period of political upheaval, of social unrest and discontent, of impatience with law, of pandering to revolutionary instincts, he stood as President of the United States firmly, uncompromisingly and sturdily for the right, and put all his trust and confidence in the sober second thought and profound patriotism of the American people, in their attachment to law and orderly progress, and in their determination that the American system of constitutional representative government "shall not perish from the earth."