The New Star Chamber and Other Essays Political Tendencies
by Edgar Lee Masters
Webster, in his great political speech delivered in New York March 15, 1837, used the following language in commenting upon what is now termed the "constitutional march": "A gentleman," said he, "not now living, wished very much to vote for the establishment of a bank of the United States, but he always stoutly denied the constitutional power of the United States to create such a bank. The country, however, was in a state of great financial distress, from which such an institution, it was hoped, might help to extricate it, and this consideration led the worthy member to review his opinions with care and deliberation. He came satisfactorily to the conclusion that congress might incorporate a bank. The power, he said, to create a bank was either given to congress or it was not given. Very well. If it was given congress, of course, could exercise it; if it was not given the people still retained it, and in that case congress, as the representative of the people, might upon an emergency make free use of it." Continuing the bitter irony, Webster said: "Arguments and conclusions in substance like these, gentlemen, will not be wanting if men of great popularity, commanding characters, sustained by powerful parties and full of good intentions toward the public, may be permitted to call themselves universal representatives of the people."
It is the argument that a given thing must be done and, therefore, that there must be constitutional power to do it that has led to nearly all the trespasses upon the organic law. For instance, listen to the reasoning in the decision in the insular cases: "A false step at this time," said Mr. Justice Brown, "might be fatal to the development of what Chief Justice Marshall called the American empire. Choice in some cases, the natural gravitation of small bodies toward large ones in others, the result of a successful war in still others may bring about conditions which would render the annexation of distant possessions desirable."
How far annexation in any case is desirable is a difficult matter to determine. Can it be gathered from the inspired utterances of newspapers or the paid articles in magazines? Can it be gathered from the interviews of congressmen and senators or the prepared speeches of politicians engaged in creating a sentiment of desire for annexation? Can the desire of the people be ascertained unless they express themselves in a manner which separates their consideration of annexation from their consideration of all other questions? If, in fact, a majority of the people desire annexation, and if it be not merely desired by a clique of selfish commercialists, is the desire of a thing the test of constitutionality? We can paraphrase Webster's words as follows: "The power to annex islands and govern them arbitrarily outside of the constitution was either given to congress or it was not given. Very well. If it was given congress, of course, could exercise it. If it was not given the people still retain it, and in that case congress, as the representative of the people, might upon an emergency make free use of it, especially where it is desirable and where a false step at this time might be fatal to acquisitions hereafter."
"There shall be no imperialism," said the late Mr. McKinley, "except the imperialism of the American people," which means also that whatever the people desire the congress will do, congress or a few privileged interests being the judge, however, of what the people desire.
From the mocking satire of Webster to the solemn decision of Mr. Justice Brown is a long step, and yet this is one of the developments which some men yet living have seen come to pass.
The arguments which were used to create a desire for imperialism, if there was any real desire for it, and which were largely accepted, plainly show that the present sociological state of the American people is religious if not supernatural. Many well-meaning people can be won to anything by the argument that it is predestined or that it bears the evidence of a providential dispensation wonderful and particular. This appeals to the imagination and stirs the dramatic sense more or less active in all men. And though we no longer beat tomtoms to drive away eclipses nor attribute pestilence to the wrath of demons and in general have installed law and order where caprice and accident formerly held sway, yet nevertheless when a certain class of thinkers deals with the actions of large bodies of men, whether as nations or armies, their imaginations carry them completely away. If Admiral Dewey steers into the harbor of Manila without accident and defeats the Spaniards it is providential.
The Boers and the Britons prayed to the same God, yet the victory was providential and predestined. A few diplomats struck with the commercial advantages of the Philippine islands negotiate for their cession in the same deliberate way that an individual buys out a business, and the cry is set up that they came to our hands by the act of God. "Whether we are glad or sorry," says Mr. Roosevelt, "that events have forced us to go there is aside from the question. The point is that as the inevitable result of the war with Spain we find ourselves in the Philippines."
It is the invention of such fictions as these and their explanation upon a supernatural basis that enables a few men to use a large contingent of well-meaning people -- people who are carried away by gusts of false sentiment which they imagine to be pentecostal visitations of the over-soul. Is it any wonder that the diplomats and empire builders laugh in their sleeves at the people?
But as it was our destiny to make this "desirable" annexation it is also our destiny to play a mighty part hereafter in the history of the world. There shall not be any longer a cowardly shrinking from duty; for woe or weal the die is cast. It is fate. We must fail greatly or triumph greatly, but great we must be. The past is dead; our little part of isolation is over. We are no longer the Maud Muller of nations drinking at the well, ashamed of our calico gowns and sighing for the city far away. We have become great. We have painted our eyebrows and put on our scarlet robes, and, being no longer a reproach or a menace to any other power, we suddenly find ourselves on terms of kindness with all nations, except in so far as jealousy might be enkindled if expected favors should not be distributed with a decent regard to circumstances.
Yet all this talk about this nation having suddenly become an influence in the world is merely a piping upon penny whistles. For that matter the United States were a world power in 1776. The American revolution established the French republic and shook every throne in Europe. The struggle of our people in the war for independence resulted in greater rights to every man in Europe, and the end is not yet. The United States were pretty much of a world power in 1812; in the sense, moreover, in which the gentlemen use the term. They were a world power in the days of President Monroe, when we, as a little people, declared to the whole of Europe that the extension of monarchy on the western hemisphere would not be tolerated. We were something of a world power in 1861 in spite of the hatred of England, whose sudden friendship in this day makes some of us wonder. We were something of a world power in 1867 when Napoleon III was forced by President Johnson to take his troops from Mexico and leave the paper empire of Maximilian to its fate. And we were something of a world power during the administration of President Cleveland when England was frightened from Venezuela. No loving kindness at that time prevented us from protecting our interests and traditions as it does in these days of our boasted prowess as a world power.
But how long will our ideas last or the expression of them remain untrammeled? Trooping behind our entrance as a world power comes the hint that the Philippine aggression cannot be discussed without committing an impropriety. "If we are sensitive to our honor at home," says Mr. Roosevelt, "we will not discuss it." For it is a question neither of right nor wrong, nor of constitutional law, but it is a question of honor. It is fate, but if it were not fate it is done, and since done honor forbids its condemnation. Thus the constitution is made a huge joke; a genial myth like Santa Claus with which to befool the people, while everything is resolved into a question of honor, and whether our honor is being besmirched or not depends upon those to decide who assume to conserve it and fix the political fashions of the day.
Some other conditions have arisen as the outgrowth of other developments which have fully made their appearance at this time. The tendency of the period is very strongly toward socialism. That it should be condemned as unholy by the very men who have produced it is perhaps as strange a feature as the movement exhibits.
For almost a century it has been the policy to give governmental aid to men no more entitled to it than anyone else. Manufacturers have been awarded premiums of all sorts upon the theory that they were predestined to have it and inherently and of right must have it. For, it is said, they cannot be profitable without it. "The tariff," according to Mr. Roosevelt in his late message, "makes manufacturers profitable, and the tariff remedy proposed (for the trusts) would be in effect simply to make manufacturers unprofitable."
So this governmental favoritism leads not to a revival of individualism but to socialism, for the reason that long confusion of the province of the state has obscured the line between state duty and individual right and has made men eager for immediate benefits as the favorites of government have been eager for bounties and gifts in order to obtain present results. And if this dispensation of special privileges is necessary as a foundation of our modern commercialism why, it is asked, is it not the prior step in the order of evolution, or collective ownership? Hereby we eliminate the tyrannous greed of the few who use our property for our own undoing; who not only take the bulk of what we earn, but tax us for those things which we need, and which we have made it profitable to produce by tariff laws bearing upon us. Hence it is that all socialists, and especially the Marxians, watch with calm certainty the results. Their belief that by some blind fatality society is moving toward socialism and that the aggression of capital enters into the certain force which will bring the wished-for end is in part justified.
The efforts of the magicians of plutocracy to keep back the ground swell are wasted in air. Not realizing that their patrons have produced the movement, they seem to think that it can be kept down by shouting socialism or by talking against "criminal discontent," "vile trade unions" and other disorders. One distinguished educator grieves because it seems to him that labor wishes to "work as few hours as possible and get as much money as possible" -- just as if it had been the creed of capitalism to give as much as possible and exact as little as possible.
What a spectacle has been held up to the wealth producers of this country for more than a century! They have seen every form of capitalism lobbying at the national and state capitals for laws enabling them to get something for nothing. They have seen the laws made and administered for their interests. They have seen protected industries combine with each other to monopolize and extort, and railroads combine with these to discriminate against and crush out independent enterprise. They have seen some of their sworn officials uphold this condition as scientific, the result of natural evolution, and others confess its iniquities, but deny their power under the constitution to help it. Why should moral wonders be expected of labor? Too great a compliment is paid it in marveling that it desires short hours and big pay. It sees corruption and favoritism flourish at the top and the laws of supply and demand and competition repealed from the industrial code, and in consequence it can conceive no reason why it should not become an actor in the great melodrama of "grab."
But if socialism shall come, what then? Democracy has not failed because it has not been tried. Our ills have followed from violations of democracy and not because of its observance. It is trite enough to say, but not sufficiently learned, nevertheless, that this government was founded upon the principle of equal rights. If that had been observed it seems inconceivable that we should suffer from the present evils. If it could be proven that the great industries of the land and our great industrial system could not have been built up except by special privilege yet has the end justified the means? Build up a few, but impoverish the many. The country as a whole is no richer. It is an argument that ends where it begins, except that human blood is consumed in its development. And that is the question. Are men but coral insects that build and die? Are we on a level with animals which devour each other for sustenance? This is where the argument ends; only the preachers and the teachers indulge in irrelevant conclusions of some sort; or latterly they have canonized Darwin and driven self-conscious intelligence in the control of human destiny from the economic field.
Lastly collectivism is the opposite of individualism. Perhaps a partial trial of the former might prove its own undoing and carry with it the downfall of paternalism as well. The pendulum ought to swing that way. If it did the cost would not be too much for the benefit derived.
