Footsteps Of His Flock 1921-2

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This is a quick-start guide to using the Records. The Power of Positive Energy: Be the first to review this item Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Another new factor was introduced by the Civil War, when slavery was first practically and then legally extinguished. Meanwhile the material progress of the country had produced other not less significant changes. The development of agriculture, mining, and manufactures, the growth of commerce, foreign and domestic, which the use of steam for navigation and the construction of railroads had raised to gigantic proportions, created immense wealth, and concentrated a large share of it in the hands of comparatively few men.

The old equality of fortunes disappeared, and though such distinction of ranks as had existed in colonial days melted away, the social relations of different classes lost their simplicity and familiarity when the rich lived in one quarter of great cities and the poorer were crowded together in others. That personal knowledge which made the feeling of a common interest a bond between the citizens was weakened.

The power which money inevitably carries with it went on growing as the means of using it multiplied. Railroads and other business enterprises came to be worked on so vast a scale that it was worth while to obtain facilities for starting or conducting them by the illegitimate expenditure of large sums. The number of persons rich enough to corrupt legislators or officials increased, and as the tempters could raise their offers higher, those who succumbed to temptation were more numerous.

Thus the power of money, negligible during the first two generations, became a formidable factor in politics. As material interests grew more prominent and the passion for money-making more intense, policies and projects were more and more judged by the pecuniary prospects they opened up. That this did not exclude the influence of moral or humanitarian ideals is shown by the history of the Slavery controversy, for America, like England, is a country in which two currents of feeling have been wont to run side by side, sometimes apart, sometimes each checking or disturbing the course of the other.

While the economic aspect of every question came more insistently into view, and tinged men's opinions on public issues, so also business enterprises had a greater attraction for men of ability and energy, diverting into other careers talents and ambitions which would in earlier days have been given to the service of the State. Men absorbed in business did not cease to vote, but were apt to leave their votes at the disposal of their political leaders.

None of these changes could have been foreseen Edition: The results of these geographical and economic changes may be summarized in a brief comparison:. For a population five-sixths of which dwelt in rural tracts or small towns. For a people almost wholly of British stock. For a people mainly engaged in agriculture, in fishing, and in trading on a small scale. To a territory of 2,, square miles, three-fourths of which is pretty thickly inhabited.

To a population fully one-third of which dwells in cities with more than 25, inhabitants. To a people less than half of whose blood is of British origin and about one-tenth of whom are of African descent. To a people which includes more men of enormous wealth than are to be found in all Europe. To a people more than half of whom are engaged in manufacturing, mining, or commerce, including transportation. It would not be strange if these institutions should bear signs of the unforeseen strain to which they have been subjected.

The wonder is, not that the machinery creaks and Edition: But before examining the results of the changes referred to we must take note of a phenomenon of supreme importance which has affected in many ways the development of the institutions aforesaid. This is the growth of Party, and in particular of Party Organizations the most complete and most powerful that the world has seen. They constitute a sort of second non-legal government which has gained control of the legal government.

The three chief contributions which the United States has made to political science regarded as an Applied Science or Practical Art have been:.

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Rigid or so-called Written Constitutions, which, as being the expressions of the supreme will of the people, limit the powers of the different branches of government. The use of Courts of Law to interpret Rigid Constitutions and secure their authority by placing their provisions out of the reach of legislative or executive action. Of these the first two are precautions against, or mitigations of, faults to which democracy is liable; while the third has proved to be an aggravation of those faults, undoing part of the good which the two former were doing, and impairing popular sovereignty itself.

Yet party organization is a natural and probably an inevitable incident of democratic government. It has in itself nothing pernicious. Its evils have sprung from its abuses. We can now perceive that these evils are an outgrowth of the system likely to appear wherever it attains full development. But are they inevitable evils? Could they have been prevented if foreseen? Can they now be cut away without impairing such utility as the system possesses?

This is a problem the American people have been trying to solve; and their efforts deserve to be studied. Before describing the structure of the Organizations, let us enquire how Party came to cover the field and affect the working of politics more widely in America than elsewhere. The political issues on which parties formed themselves after the establishment of the Federal Constitution were Rational issues. The first of these arose between those who sought to give full scope to Federal power and those who Edition: This issue presently became entangled with that of the tariff; some groups desiring to use import duties for the protection of home industries, others preferring a tariff for revenue only.

The question of the extension of slavery into the States which were from time to time formed out of the unorganized territories of the Union induced that bitter antagonism which ultimately led to the war of Secession. These issues overtopped and practically superseded all State and other local issues, and marked the lines of division between parties over the whole country. The fact that the Federal senators were chosen by the legislatures of the States made it the interest of each National party to fight every election of a State legislature on party lines, in order to obtain in that body a majority which would secure the choice of senators of its own persuasion, so State legislatures came to be divided on strict party lines, i.

From the States the same habit spread into local elections, so that contests in cities and counties were also fought on party lines, though the work of these local bodies lay even more apart than did that of the States from the questions which divided the nation. It became a principle to maintain the power of the National parties in all elected bodies and by all means available, for the more the party was kept together in every place and on every occasion for voting, so much the stronger would it be for national purposes.

Thus the partisan spirit extended itself to the choice of those administrative officials who were directly elected by the citizens, such as the State Governor and State Treasurer, the mayor of a city, the county commissioners. These elections also were fought on party lines, for a victory redounded to the credit and strength of the National party. Personal character and capacity were' little regarded. The candidate was selected, in manner to be presently described, by the Primary or the Nominating Convention as the case might be , as a party man, entitled to party recognition; and Edition: A further downward step was to require any official who had to appoint subordinate officers, or even to employ persons for some humble public service, to prefer members of his party for selection to the office or work.

The official, himself chosen as a party man, was expected to serve the party by filling every place he could with men bound to vote for party candidates and otherwise serve the party. Even a labourer paid by weekly wages got employment on the condition of his voting and working for the party. Thus politics came to mean party politics and little else. People thought of party success as an end in itself, irrespective of the effect it would have upon the administration of many matters into which no party principle could enter. These evils were aggravated by the fact that the public service was not permanent.

As the elected officials served for short terms, posts became frequently vacant. The tenure of those who were not directly elected but appointed lasted no longer than that of the authority who had appointed them, so when power passed from one party to another after an election, the employees appointed by the outgoing party had, however efficient they might be, no claim to be continued.

They were dismissed, and their places given to successors appointed by the incoming party, which thus rewarded its friends and strengthened its influence. This practice, known as the Spoils System, 1 began in the State of New York early in the nineteenth century, and thence spread not only to other States but into the National Government also, so that the President, who by this time had an enormous number of posts at his disposal, was expected to use them as rewards for party services.

The Frame of Government, the outlines of which have been already described, was constructed in the belief that the people, desiring, and knowing how to secure, their own good, would easily effect their purposes by choosing honest Edition: In a New England township, and even in the far larger county area of Virginia, the men of the eighteenth century knew personally the fellow-citizens whom they trusted, and could select those whose opinions they approved and whom they deemed capable; so, though the existence of parties was recognized, as were also the dangers of party spirit, the choice of legislators and officials seems to have been regarded as a simple matter, and it was not perceived that when population increased and offices became more important the old simple methods would not suffice, since elections must involve more and more work, and the selection of candidates be more difficult.

Party organizations grew up unnoticed because unforeseen. There had been none in England, the only country where popular elections were known and party spirit had sometimes been furious. Thus it befell that in the United States, though parties appeared from the early days of the National Government, and their antagonisms were already fierce when the fourth presidential election was held in , party organizations grew slowly, and attracted little attention. Tocqueville, writing in , never mentions them, yet they were already strong in his day, and had covered the whole country before the Civil War broke out in Some sort of associated action is incidental to every representative government, for wherever power is given to elected persons, those citizens who desire their particular views to prevail must band themselves together to secure the choice of the persons best fitted both to express their own views and to attract the votes of other citizens.

Whether they devise a method for selecting a candidate or simply accept the man who presents himself, they must work in unison to recommend him to the voters generally, canvassing for him and bringing up their friends to the poll.

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Without concerted action there will be confusion, disorder, loss of voting power. An Election Committee formed to help a candidate pledged to its cause is the simplest form of party organization, legitimate and possibly inexpensive. Beyond this form party organization in England did not advance till our own time. In the United States it was found necessary to go further. Under the constitutions of the several States elections were frequent, because many administrative as well as all legislative posts, both State and municipal, were filled by popular vote, and because these posts were held for short terms.

But in America, where Equality prevailed, neither wealth nor rank gave a claim to any post. The principle of Popular Sovereignty suggested that it was for the citizens not only to choose members or officials by their votes, but to say for what persons votes should be cast. Hence where any post was to be filled by local election, the local adherents of the party were deemed entitled to select the man on whom their voting force was to be concentrated. This was a logical development of the principle.

Instead of letting a clique of influential men thrust a candidate upon them, or allowing a number of candidates to start in rivalry and so divide their votes, the party met before the election to choose the man they preferred to be their local standard-bearer, and it was understood that the votes of all would be given to whomsoever the majority chose. A meeting of this kind was called a Party Primary, and it became the duty of the party committee which managed elections to make the arrangements for summoning, and naturally also for advising, the Primary.

These being the two aims which called party organization into being, I pass to its main features, substantially, though not in minor details, the same over the whole country, and will describe it as it stood in , before recent changes which cannot be understood till an account has been Edition: Though it has been almost everywhere altered, it may revert to type, and in any case it has been a product of democracy too remarkable to be ignored, for it showed how organizations essentially oligarchic in structure, though professing to be democratic, can become tyrannical under democratic forms.

The work of every Party Organization is twofold, corresponding to the two aims aforesaid. One branch of it was to select party candidates by the process called Nomination, as practised before the recent changes. The other is to promote the general interests of the party in every electoral area. Each party has, in most States, a party Committee in every city ward, in every city, in every township and State Assembly district and Congressional district, in every county, in every State, and at the head of all a National Committee for the whole United States, appointed to fight the approaching Presidential Election.

The Committees are appointed annually, the same persons, and especially the Chairman, being usually continued from year to year. They have plenty to do, for the winning of elections is a toilsome and costly business. Funds have to be raised, meetings organized, immigrants recruited for the party and enrolled as its members, lists of voters and their residences prepared, literature produced and diffused, and other forms of party propaganda attended to, and when the day of election arrives party tickets must be provided and distributed, 2 canvassers and other election workers organized and paid, voters brought up to the polls.

Each Committee keeps touch with the Committee next above it in a larger electoral area, and with that below it in a smaller, so that, taken together, these bodies constitute a network, strong. They are an army kept on a war footing, always ready for action when each election comes round; and everything except the nomination of candidates and formulation of party programmes is within their competence. Nominations belong to the other set of party authorities. These are either Primaries or Conventions. The Primary was — until recent legislation, of which more hereafter — the party meeting for the smaller election areas, in which a large proportion of the voters belonging to the party could be brought together in one room.

It had two duties. The other duty was to choose delegates to proceed to, and represent it in, a Nominating Convention for some larger election area or areas within which its own area lay. Thus a Ward Primary in a city would send delegates to a City Convention which nominates candidates for the mayoralty and other municipal offices, and also to a State Assembly District Convention, a State Senatorial District Convention, a Congressional District Convention, which nominates a candidate for Congress, and a State Convention which nominates a candidate for the Governorship and other elective State offices.

The Nominating Convention consists for Conventions are not extinct of the delegates from the Primaries or minor Conventions within some large election area. Its function is to select candidates for elective offices within that area, such as members of the State Legislature, members Edition: A Convention also passes resolutions enouncing the views and aims of the party. These, however, being usually cut and dried, seldom arouse discussion. All these arrangements scrupulously respected the Sovereignty of the People. No member of a Committee, no delegate to a Convention, was self-appointed.

All were chosen by the members of the party. Nobody was recognized as a candidate unless he had been chosen by a party meeting. In theory, nothing could be more correct.

Now let us look at the practice. Even before the system had matured and still more after its full development, tendencies appeared disclosing inherent dangers. Those new phenomena, due to the growth of population and wealth, which have been already described, strengthened these tendencies, giving rise to grave perversions. The Primary was in theory open to all members of the party resident within its area, but in order to prevent persons who did not belong to the party from entering and turning it into a public instead of a private party meeting, it became necessary to have a roll of party members, so that every one claiming to vote could prove his title.

Now the rolls were kept by the local party Committee already referred to, a body composed of the most active and thoroughly partisan local politicians. Wishing to make sure of a subservient primary, this Committee took care to place on the rolls only those whom it deemed to be trusty party men, so any citizen suspected of independence was not likely to be enrolled.

Prima facie , therefore, the Committee could make pretty sure that when Edition: Now the Primaries were usually held in the evening, especially in the cities, and it was chiefly in the cities that the nomination methods here described were employed. Often it consisted entirely of persons belonging to the humbler strata of the party. The richer sort, including the larger taxpayers, though they had the strongest interest in entrusting administration to men who would conduct it economically, seldom attended, preferring their social engagements, or a quiet evening at home with their families.

Few troubled themselves to see that their names were on the roll. Still fewer desired the local posts, or cared to serve as delegates to a Convention, so the choice of nominees for the offices, and for the function of delegate, was usually left to the Committee, who bringing their list cut and dried, proposed and carried it without trouble.

Now and then there was opposition, if there happened to be a feud within the party, or if some among the better sort of citizens, fearing the nomination of exceptionally unfit men, thought it worth while to make a fight. However, the Committee could usually command a majority, and as the chairman was ready to rule every question in their favour, opposition rarely succeeded.

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Thus the Committee, being master of the situation, almost always put through its nominations both for the local posts and for the choice of delegates. That having been done, the Committee itself was reappointed, and the rule of the local managers thereby duly prolonged from one year to another. When the delegates proceeded to the Convention they met other delegates from other Primaries within the Convention area, persons similarly chosen, and similarly bound to carry out the instructions which their respective Primaries had given them.

Sometimes these instructions directed them to vote in the Convention for the nomination of the person whom the party managers had already fixed on as the party candidate for any particular office, but even if no direction had been given, they followed the managers' lead. It need hardly be said that the petty local politicians who managed Edition: If the Primary elections had been well handled, there was little trouble in getting the Convention to accept the list of nominations prepared by the managers, and this list, being official, then commanded the votes of all sound party men.

The whole procedure was, in point of form, strictly democratic. The Voice of the People rang out in the Primaries. The delegates transmitted it to the Convention; so those whom the Convention nominated as party candidates were the people's choice. Hence the trouble taken to secure the Primaries was none too great.

They were the key of the position. Why did these methods succeed? Since about , if not earlier, the more observant and thoughtful citizens had known the realities which previously, cloaked under democratic forms, had passed almost unnoticed. Yet for many a year they submitted tamely to the perversion of those forms, taking no pains to have good candidates selected, and voting for whatsoever candidates the Organization presented to them.

All this implies that the citizens did not live up to the standard of civic duty which their democratic system contemplated. It does not mean that they were below the level of citizens elsewhere. On the contrary, they were probably above the point at which that level stands in Europe. What it does mean is that the legal duty imposed on them of voting frequently and the non-legal duty of sharing in party management were, taken together, too numerous and troublesome for average human nature.

Overmuch was demanded from them. If less had been asked, more might have been given. Nevertheless a time came when the combined influence of all these causes could no longer stifle discontent. From about onwards, dissatisfaction grew so strong that a demand for a reform of the Primaries, beginning in the great Eastern cities, spread over the country and secured in nearly every State the enactment of statutes intended to root out the abuses described and deliver the party voter from his tyrants.

These changes will be described when we come to a general survey of the efforts recently made to improve the working of American institutions. These vast party organizations, covering the country from ocean to ocean with a network of Committees, managing Primaries and Conventions, fighting the endless elections, raising and spending large sums of money, needed, and still need, a number of men to work them said to exceed that of all the elected officials of the country, if we omit those of ward and township.

Many chairmen of the more important Committees give their whole time to the work. Many of the humbler sort, who look after voters in the wards of crowded cities, throw zeal as well as labour into the duties assigned to them. What are the inducements? Whence comes the remuneration? One must distinguish three classes of persons. From time to time, when some exciting issue rouses hope or alarm, men will work out of disinterested attachment to party doctrines. Many more, especially among the humble and less educated, are stirred by party spirit pure and simple, fighting for victory as in a football match.

Keen is the pleasure of strife and competition, especially in America. The sympathy that springs from co-operation feeds this spirit. It is a joy to stand shoulder to shoulder, especially with a prospect of success. But the largest number of workers in all ranks work for their own interests, those at the top aiming at high political office, which may carry with it opportunities of gain exceeding its salary, those lower down desiring either a humbler public post or perhaps a profit to be made out of the Administration when their friends are installed in it, those at the bottom seeking employment in the police, or the fire service, or the gas service, or some other department of municipal work.

Thus the main inducement is Office, or the assured prospect of receiving an office when the party one serves is in power. The Organization can confer the office and recognizes the obligation to do so, because it controls nominations and can require its nominees, when elected, to reward service rendered to it by bestowing any emolument, legitimate or illegitimate, that lies within the range of their official power or covert influence.

It is largely self-supporting, like an army that lives off the country it is conquering, but while the party forces are paid by salaried posts, legislative, administrative, or judicial, the funds of the Organization are also replenished by contributions exacted from business Edition: In this material aspect, the Organization is called by Americans the Machine, because it is a well compacted and efficient set of contrivances which in its ordered working provides places for the professional staff who serve its purposes by helping to win elections.

Who were responsible for the rule of professional politicians? Where were the good citizens while all these things were going on? Why did they vote at State and City elections for candidates of whom they knew nothing except that they were the Machine nominees? The system had grown up naturally as the business of winning elections became more and more a matter needing constant attention and labour.

Those who had created the original Committees came to be permanent party managers, and had worked out of party spirit before they began to work for their selfish interests. Many of the urban constituencies had grown so large by the increase of population that very few of the voters knew, or could know, who were the fittest candidates. The bulk were too much engrossed with their own business to be at the trouble of enquiring for themselves, so when the party gave them guidance by nominating candidates, they took thankfully what was given.

In exciting times the vehemence of their party spirit disposed them to overlook a candidate's defects and accept any one who had received the party stamp from nomination by the Primary or the Convention. In duller times, they cared so little about the matter that while many stayed away from the polls, others voted the ticket like automata. Seldom was any protest raised in a Primary or Convention. From time to time questions arose which so deeply touched either the emotions or the pocket of the good citizen as to make him ready to swallow any candidate and turn a blind eye to a want of honour in party leaders.

The zealous Anti-Slavery men of New England pardoned everything for the sake of that cause; and in later days the Protectionists of Pennsylvania allowed their State to be dominated Edition: Thus it befell that party spirit supported the Organization through evil-doing and well-doing. Without such a spirit the Machine could not have won and kept power. But neither could the spirit have shown such tenacity of life without the Organization which gathered in and drilled recruits from the masses, turning into fervent Republicans or Democrats crowds of brand-new citizens who, neither knowing nor caring what the tenets of their party were, liked to be associated in a body which brought them into the life of their adopted country.

They became partisans without principles, the solidest kind of voters. It must also be remembered that the party managers were not all professionals, at least in the lower sense of the term. Some were eminent statesmen who loved the party for the party's sake, and who, though not soiling their own hands, could not afford to scrutinize too closely the methods of the Bosses who controlled the votes which the party needed. This brings us to another aspect of the subject. Who were those that led and ruled each Party, not as a professional machine with pecuniary aims, but as an association of citizens desiring to shape the policy of the nation?

Who determined in what wise its traditional principles should be from time to time adapted to the circumstances and needs of the moment?

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Since a main object of every party is to foresee and follow the public opinion of the majority so as to catch votes at elections, it must, for this purpose, consider what views on current issues should be announced beforehand, what plans formulated and promises made. The fundamental doctrine of democracy prescribes that the only authorized exponent of the views of the people is the People itself, and this means, for a party, all its members assembled by their representatives in a Convention.

Accordingly every State Convention held before a State election adopted a Platform, which, though it might touch upon any important State issue, was chiefly concerned with national Edition: Still more authoritative of course is the platform adopted by the National Convention when it selects the party candidate for the Presidency. But in neither body is there any real discussion of the planks in the platform. There is not time enough, and a National Convention is a body of more than a thousand delegates meeting in the presence of ten thousand spectators.

The part played by the Convention is formal. In England the Prime Minister and Cabinet declare the policy of the party in power, and are usually accepted as speaking on its behalf; while the leader of the parliamentary Opposition and the ex-Cabinet do the like for the party in opposition.

But the existing Cabinet in America counts for little in such a matter, and the last preceding Cabinet for nothing at all. Next to him in authority would come the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but only if personally influential, together with a few of the leading senators of the party, and some other adroit and experienced politicians, especially if they are in touch with the President. But with such men leadership depends on personal qualities and reputation, not upon any official position. Share your thoughts with other customers.

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