Monday, May 26, 2014

William Randolph Hearst's Gubernatorial acceptance speech of the Independence League

William Randolph Hearst - Acceptance of the Independence League Nomination (October 3rd, 1906)

Two Things are of special importance as issues in this campaign, liberty and prosperity. By far the greater of these is liberty, for a man not truely free is not really a man at all. The object of the Independence League is to resist the attacks upon human liberty, upon government of the people menaced by corporation rule, and to resist the attacks upon general prosperity by those same corporations, and by dishonest financial agencies.

I accept with gratitude and with a deep feeling of responsibility the nomination of the Independence League.

In addressing you I am mindful of the fact that you represent the determination of the people, irrespective of party, to restore the American system of government in this country.

The great problem the people must solve is to do away with corporation control of the Government. That control is practically absolute. It rests mainly upon our system of partisan politics, directed by boss rule and subject to trust ownership.

As long as a trust can buy the bosses on both sides, dictate the nominations on both sides, control Railroad Commissions, give away franchises, bribe with the people's money the people's representatives, what part do the people themselves play in government?

The mere destruction of one boss and the substitution of another boss equally evil is of no permanent value. The system which permits the development of the boss must be overthrown and party control and political nominations placed directly in the hands of the people. In the platform of the Independence League, which I indorse word for word and which I shall strive faithfully to represent, I see the practical solution of the boss question. I refer to the specific demand for direct nomination of men to fill every public office, from Assemblymen to Judges and Senators of the United States. With the installation of the direct nomination system, the people will choose their representatives, the boss will be without power, and he will disappear.

Any man or any organization of any party who supports my candidacy for any reason whatever, for his own sake or for that of the party or organization to which he belongs, does so with the full knowledge that I am pledged to use every effort to exterminate the system in which the boss stands between the people and the trusts as agents for the trusts and as an enemy of popular government, in this State and in this Nation.

The League has so aroused the people upon the fundamental issue of government by trusts or by citizens that already they have called forth democratic action by the masses of the Democratic Party. The Democracy, denouncing bribery and its accompanying campaign of falsehood and villification, has wrested control of the party machine from the grip of the corporations, and by an overwhelming vote it has indorsed the candidates of the Independence League for the three offices in the service of the State.

Because of that indorsement by a party in posession of the election machinery the Independence League and its principles are assured of fair protection at the polls, of which they would otherwise have been deprived. Because of the hand held out by the Democratic Party independent citizenship in this State will have at the coming election a chance to count every vote cast against corporation control.

You see a corporation lawyer put forward as the standard bearer of the Republican Party in this campaign. You see corporation lawyers and violent partisans of monopolies held up to you as the only men fit to select your Judges.

How is prosperity to be preserved, increased, and protected? Surely the first task is to protect from attack the very foundations upon which the Nation's prosperity rests. Hard times come from panics, and panics are often precipitated by such shameful misconduct in insurance, banking, and building and loan concerns as have disquieted and angered the people of late.

The robbery of the public by dishonest bankers, by swindling managers of building and loan companies, by the high pirates of finance that juggle with life insurance funds, is inevitable as long as the very powers interested in robbing the people are permitted to name and control the officials that are supposed to protect the people.

If you have speculative finance controlling your State administration and dictating the appointment of your Bank Examiner, what protection can the people have, what security for their savings upon which prosperity in the present and the family in the future must depend?

The people know that their enemies are the originators and managers of oppressive trusts. They know that these trusts are in control in the machine of the Republican party in this state. They see Mr. Sheldon chosen as Treasurer to raise and spend the money for Mr. Hughes, the corporation attorney. And when they realize that Mr. Sheldon, Director in twenty-one corporations, notoriously connected with the collapsed Shipbuilding Trust, is the financial reliance of the ticket which Mr. Hughes heads, they cannot look upon that ticket as promising much for the prosperity of the mass of the people. The essence of prosperity of the right kind of honesty and security, and there is neither security nor honesty in the effort to turn over control of popular government over to corporations. The prosperity of business men, the comfort of all the citizens, are largely at the mercy of the railroad system in our country.

The people of this State have given great power to their Railroad Commission, but that power has never been used for the people and is little understood by the people. Since 1882 the Railroad Commission of the State of New York has had much the same authroity as that conferred upon the Inter-State Commerce Commission by recent legislation at Washington.

The Railroad Commission in this State has the power to relieve the farmer from discriminating rates, to lower the rates for transportation of freight and passengers after investigation and upon proper application to the courts to sustain its findings. This commission holds in its hands the power to remedy the inadequate and disgraceful car service with which so many cities in our State are afflicted, notably the various boroughs of the City of New York.

The New York State Railroad Commission today, paid by the railroads, appointed by the railroads through a Governor whom they chose, serves the railroads and remains passive in the face of such excesses as those which mark the mistreatment of passengers by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company.

Few citizens perhaps realize that the Governor of this State could, if he chose, protect the people against many of the violations of law, and of personal comfort by the street car corporations. This commission has power to enforce proper service as regards transfers, the operation of the 'car ahead' rule, the heating of cars, cleanliness, and overcrowding.

The Railroad Commission has also the power to enforce regard for safety, the use of fenders, and other safety appliances. It has power to compel the running of cars in sufficient numbers to serve the public.

Under present conditions, as the railroads own the commission, the public's rights and wishes are ignored. Official reports in New York City for April, May, and June of this year, as compared with the same months last year, show an increase of cash fares and a decrease in the number of cars run on both the elevated and surface lines. And they show that in the Subway, while the cash fares have increased 88 per cent. The car mileage has increased only 12 per cent.

Within this period more than $100,000,000 watered stock have been added to the grossly inflated capital of the New York traction system.

An honest Governor, representing the people, would appoint a Railroad Commission that would compel the spending of at least part of that $100,000,000 for the benefit of the public.

I propose, if elected, to run the present Railroad Commission out of office and to appoint a commission that will represent the traveling public instead of the public service corporations.

In regard to the violations of financial trusts and the uneasiness repeatedly caused by revelations of dishonesty in banks, trust companies, building and loan associations, such as the Merchants' Trust Company, the German Bank of Buffalo, the New York Building and Loan Association, there is no question that the public welfare demands drastic action.

It is alarming that these instances of faithlessness and dishonesty should occur without effective opposition or rebuke from the Banking Department, if not with its connivance.

I propose if elected to remove Kilburn, reorganize the department, and have it administered so as to carry out both the letter and the spirit of the law.

The corporations have juggled with the funds of insurance companies in open disregard for common honesty, contempt for the Penal Code, and for the insurance law. There is incompetence in the State Department created for the especial purpose of detecting and preventing these crimes and breaches of trust. I propose if elected to remove the present incumbent and reorganize this important department upon a business basis from top to bottom, and in this manner to end corporation control of life insurance - so vital to peace of mind in the homes of the people.

I propose, if elected, to exercise fearlessly, with due regard for the principle of home rule, the power of removal given by the people to the Governor. I propose to end control by the corporations, not only in these state departments, but in the county offices charged with the responsibility of enforcing the original laws of the State. I propose to put a premium upon the enforcement of the law instead of encouraging its violation by tolerating in office officials who grant immunity to powerful and influential offenders.

I advocate strongly every measure that will bring public officials in closer touch with the people and put them more directly under the people's control. I advocate making the public official's term of office so short that he will not have time or inclination to forget who it is that elected him, and that ought to control him.

An honest election law, an efficient corrupt practices act, and especially a measure that will make it possible to have a judicial review of an election upon proof of fraud or mistake, must be enacted as part of that campaign against corporation domination upon which the people have entered so enthusiastically. The right of American citizens to a free ballot and a fair count is absolutely fundamental.

To insure this I would advocate a law that will allow the taker of a bribe to go free in return for the testimony that should put a prison the more dangerous criminal who gives the bribe.

A public pledge should be exacted from every candidate for every office at the coming election that he will work and vote for honest primary laws and honest election laws. I advise citizens to vote for no candidate - Democratic, Republican, or independent - who shall refuse to give these pledges.

Believing in the public ownership of public utilities that are in the nature of monopolies, opposed to private confiscation of public property, and to public confiscation of private property, believing in upholding and enforcing every property right, I stand for irreconcilable hostility to the appropriation by corporations of property belonging to the community.

I shall continue to work for the enactment of a statute empowering cities to acquire and operate all public utilities, such as gas and electric lighting plants, transportation lines and telephones, whenever such cities, by a majority vote, favor such a course.

My views upon the now generally accepted principle of the eight-hour day and the law concerning the prevailing rate of wages in public work are well known. If elected I shall rigorously apply that law and those kindred measures so long a concern of enlightened humanity, such as the child labor law, the compulsory education law, the act relating to contract prison labor, and laws requiring sanitary inspection of all mines, tunnels, workshops, and dwellings. I have always been opposed to the abuse of the writ of injunction in labor disputes and I advocate the passage of a law securing the right of trial by jury in alleged contempt cases.

To lighten the burden of the farmers, who, as the Independence League platform aptly says, 'develop the fundamental wealth, feed the entire population of the State, and have created the vast railway fortunes,' railroad rates must be reduced and New York must be placed in line with other progressive States that are enforcing a maximum rate of 2 cents a mile to every railroad not specially chartered to exact a greater charge.

I thank the Independence League again for the honor it has conferred upon me. I accept the nomination and pledge myself to strive in the future as I have in the past, to refrain for the people the rights they still have, and to restore to them the power of government which they have lost.

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

http://tinyurl.com/krzzd4u

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Platform of the Independence Party

PLATFORM OF THE INDEPENDENCE PARTY, ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, ILL., JULY 28, 1908.

We, Independent America citizens, representing the Independence party in forty-four States and two Territories, have met in national convention to nominate, absolutely Independent of all other political parties, candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States

Our action is based upon a determination to wrest the conduct of public affairs from the hands of selfish interests, political tricksters and corrupt bosses, and make the Government as the founders intended, an agency for the common good.

At a period of unexampled national prosperity and promise, a staggering blow was dealt to legitimate business by the unmolested practice of stock watering and dishonest financiering. Multitudes of defenseless investors, thousands of honest business men and an army of idle workingmen are paying the penalty. Year by year, fostered by wasteful and reckless governmental extravagance, by the manipulation of trusts and by a privilege creating tariff, the cost of living mounts higher and higher. Day by day the control of the Government drifts further away from the people and more firmly Into the grip of machine politicians and party bosses.

The Republican and Democratic parties are not only responsible for these conditions, but are committed to their indefinite continuance. Prodigal of promises, they are so barren of performance that to a new party of independent voters the country must look for the establishment of a new policy and a return to genuine popular government.

Our object is not to introduce violent innovations or startling new theories. We of the Independence party look back as Lincoln did to the Declaration of Independence as the fountain-head of all political inspiration. It is not our purpose to attempt to revolutionize the American system of government, but to restore the action of the Government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln. It is not our purpose, either, to effect a radical change in the American system of government, but to conserve for the citizens of the United States their privileges and liberties won for the by the founders of this Government and to perpetuate the principles and policies upon which the nation's greatness has been built.

The Independence party is, therefore, a conservative force in American politics devoted to the preservation of American Liberty and independence to honesty in elections, to opportunity In business and to equaliiv before the law. Those who believe in the Independence party and work with It are convinced that a genuine democracy should exist; that a true republican form of government should continue that the power of government should rest with the majority of the people, and that the Government should be conducted for the benefit of the whole citizenship, rather than for the special advantage of a particular class.

Direct Nominations. - As of first importance in order to restore the power of government to the people, to make their will supreme in the primaries, in the elections and in the control of public officials after they have been elected, we declare for direct nomination, the initiative and referendum and the right of recall.

It is idle to егу out against the evil of bossism while we perpetuate a system under which the nose is inevitable. The destruction of an individual boss is of little value. The people in their politics must establish a system which will eliminate not only an objectionable boss but the system of bossism. Representative government is made a mockery by the system of modern party conventions dominated by bosses and controlled by cliques. We demand the natural remedy of direct nominations by which the people not only elect, but which is far more important, select their representatives.

The Referendum. - We believe in the principle of the initiative and referendum, and we particularly demand that no franchise grant go into operation until the terms and conditions have been approved by popular vote in the locality interested.

Recall. - We demand for the people the right to recall public officials from the public service. The power to make officials reside in the people, and in them also should reside the power to unmake and remove from office any official who demonstrates his unfitness or betrays the public trust.

Election Corruption. - Of next importance in destroying the power of selfish special interests and the corrupt political bosses whom they control is to wrest from their hands their main weapon - the corruption fund. We demand severe and effective legislation against all forms of corrupt practice at the elections, and advocate prohibiting the use of any money at elections except for meetings, literature and the necessary travelling expenses of candidates. Bidding for votes, the Republican and Democratic candidates are making an outcry about publicity of contributions, although both the Republican and Democratic parties have for years consistently blocked every effort to pass a corrupt practices act. Publicity of contributions is desirable end should be required, but the main matter or importance is the use to which contributions are put. We believe that the dishonest use of money in the past, whether contributed by individuals or by corporations, has been chiefly responsible for the corruption which has undermined our system of popular government.

Economy. - We demand honest conduct of public office and businesslike and economical administration of public affairs and we condemn the gross extravagance of Federal administration, and its appalling annual Increase in appropriations. Unnecessary appropriations mean unnecessary taxes, amd unnecessary taxes, whether direct or indirect, are paid by the people and add to the ever-increasing cost of living.

Оvercapitalization. - We condemn the evil of overcapitalization. Modern Industrial conditions make the corporation and stock company a necessity, but overcapitalization in corporations is as harmful and criminal as is personal dishonesty in an individual. Compelling the payment of dividends upon great sums that have never been invested, upon masses of watered stock not justified by the property, overcapitalization prevents the better wages, the better public service and the lower cost that should result from American inventive genius and that wide organization which is replacing costly individual competition. The collepse of dishonestly inflated enterprises robs investors, closes banks destroys confidence and engenders panics. The Independence party advocates as a primary necessity for sounder business conditions and Improved public service the enactment of laws. State and national, to prevent waterlng of stock, dishonest issues of bonds and other forms of corporation frauds.

Labor and Injunctions. - We denounce the so-called labor planks of the Republican and Democratic platforms as political buncombe and contemptible clap-trap unworthy of national parties claiming to be serious and sincere.

The Republican declaration that "no injunction or temporary restraining order should be issued without notice, except where irreparable injury would result from delay," is empty verbiage, for a showing of irreparable injury can always be made and is always made in ex parte affidavits.

The Democratic declaration that "injunctions should not be issued in any case in which injunctions should not issue if no industrial dispute were involved" is meaningless and worthless.

Such insincere and meaningless declarations place a low estimate upon the intelligence of the average American workingman and exhibit either ignorance of or indifference to the real interests of labor.

The Independence party condemns the arbitrary use of the writ of injunction and contempt proceedings as a violation of the fundamental American right of trial by jury.

From the foundation of our Government down to 1872 the Federal Judiciary act prohibited the issue of any injunction without reasonable notice until after a hearing. We assert that in all actions growing out of a dispute between employers and employees concerning terms or conditions of employment no injunction should issue until after a trial upon the merits, that such trial should be held before a jury and that in no case of alleged contempt should any person be deprived of liberty without a trial by jury.

The Independence party believes that the distribution of wealth is as important as the creation of wealth, and indorses these organizations among farmers and workers which tend to bring about a just distribution of wealth through good wages for workers and good prices for farmers, and which protect the employer and the consumer through equality of price for labor and for product and we favor such legislation as will remove them from the operation of the Sherman anti-trust law.

We indorse the eight-hour work day, favor its application to all Government employees and demand the enactment of laws requiring that all work done for the Government whether Federal or State and whether done directly or indirectly through contractors or sub-contractors shall be done on an eight-hour basis.

We favor the enactment of a law defining as illegal any combination or conspiracy to black list employees.

We demand protection for workmen through enforced use of standard safety appliances and provisions of hygienic conditions in the operation of factories, railways, mills, mines and all industrial undertaking.

We advocate State and Federal inspection of railways to secure a greater safety for railway employees and for the travelling public. We call for the enactment of stringent laws fixing employers' liabilities and a rigid prohibition of child labor through cooperation between the State governments and the National Government.

We condemn the manufacture and sale of prison made goods in the open market in competition with free labor manufactured goods. We demand that convicts shall be employed direct by the different States in the manufacture of products for use in State institutions and in making good roads, and in no case shall convicts be hired out to contractors or sub-contractors.

We favor the creation of a Department of Labor, Including mines and mining, the head of which shall be a member of the President's Cabinet.

The great abuses of grain inspection, by which the producers are plundered, demand immediate and vigorous correction. To that end we favor Federal inspection under a strict civil service law.

A Central Bank. - The Independence party declares that the right to Issue money is inherent in the Government, and it favors the establishment of a central governmental bank, through which the money so issued shall be put into general circulation.

The Tariff. - We demand a revision of the tariff, not by the friends of the tariff, but by the friends of the people, and declare for a gradual reduction of tariff duties, with just consideration for the rights of the consuming public and of established industry. There should be no protection for oppressive trusts which sell cheaply abroad and take advantage of the tariff at home to crush competition, raise prices, control production and limit work and wages.

The Railroads. - The railroads must be kept open to all upon exactly equal terms. Every form of rebate and discrimination in railroad rates is a crime against business and must be stamped out. We demand adequate railroad facilities and advocate a bill empowering shippers in time of need to compel railroads to provide sufficient cars for freight and passenger traffic and other railroad facilities through summary appeal to the courts. We favor the creation of an Interstate Commerce Court, whose sole function it shall be to review speedily and enforce summarily the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The Interstate Commerce Commission has the power to initiate investigation into the reasonableness of rates and practices and no increase in rates should be put into effect until opportunity for such investigation is afforded. The Interstate Commerce Commission should proceed at once with a physical valuation of railroads engaged in interstate commerce.

Trusts. - We believe that legitimate organizations in business designed to secure an economy of operation and increased production are beneficial wherever the public participates in the advantages which result. We denounce all combinations for restraint of trade and for the establishment of monopoly in all products of labor, and declare that such combinations are not combinations for production, but for extortion, and that activity in this direction is not industry, but robbery.

In cases of infractions of the Anti-Trust law or of the Interstate Commerce act, we believe in the enforcement of a prison penalty against the guilty and responsible individuals controlling the management of the offending corporations, rather than a fine imposed upon stockholders.

Public Ownership. - We advocate the extension of the principle of public ownership of public utilities, including railroads, as rapidly as municipal, State or National Government shall demonstrate ability to conduct public utilities for the public benefit. We favor specifically government ownership of the telegraphs, such as prevails in every other civilized country in the world, and demand as an immediate measure that the Government shall purchase and operate the telegraphs in connection with the postal service.

Parcels Post: Postal Banks. - The parcels post system should be rapidly and widely extended and Government postal savings banks should be established, where the people's deposits will be secure, the money to be loaned to the people in the locality of the several banks and at a rate of interest to be fixed by the Government.

Good Roads. - We favor the Immediate development of a national system of good roads connecting all States, and national aid to States in the construction and maintenance of post roads.

Postal Censorship. - We favor a court review of the censorship and arbitrary rulings of the Post-Office Department.

Statehood of Arizona and New Mexico. - We favor the admission of Arizona and New Mexico into separate Statehood.

Bucket Shop Suppression. - We advocate such legislation, both State and national, as will suppress the bucket shop and prohibit the fictitious selling of farm products for future delivery.

National Health Bureau. - We favor the creation of a national department of public health, to be presided over by a member of the medical profession, this department to exercise such authority over matters of public health, hygiene and sanitation which come properly within the jurisdiction of the National Government, and do not interfere with the right of States or municipalities.

Asiatic Exclusion. - We oppose Asiatic immigration which does not amalgamate with our population, creates race issues and un-American conditions, and which reduces wages and tends to lower the high standard of living and the high standard of morality which American civilization has established.

We demand the passage of an exclusion act which shall protect American workingmen from competition with Asiatic cheap labor and which shall protect American civilisation from the contamination of Asiatic conditions.

The Navy. - The Independence party declares for peace and against aggression and will promote the movement for the settlement of international disputes by arbitration.

We believe, however, that a small navy is poor economy and that a strong navy is the best protection in time of war and the best preventive of war. We, therefore, favor the speedy building of a navy sufficiently strong to protect at the same time both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States.

Waterways and Resources. - We rejoice in the adoption of both the Democratic and Republican platforms of the demand of the Independence party for improved national waterways and the Mississippi inland deep waterways project, to complete a ship canal from the Gulf to the Great Lakes. We favor the extension of this system to the tributaries of the Mississippi by means of which thirty States shall be served and 20,000 miles added to the coast line of the United States. The reclamation of arid lands should be continued and the irrigation programme now contemplated by the Government extended and steps taken for the conservation of the country's natural resources, which should be guarded not only against devastation and waste, but against falling into the control of the monopoly. The abuses growing out of the administration of our forest preserves must be corrected and provision should be made for free grazing from public lands outside of forest or other reservations. In behalf of the people residing in arid portions of our Western States we protest vigorously against the policy of the Federal Government in selling the exclusive use of water and electric light power derived from public works to private corporations, thus creating a monopoly and subjecting citizens living in those sections to exorbitant charges for light and power, and diverting enterprises originally started for public benefit into channels for corporate greed and oppression, and we demand that no more exclusive contracts be made.

Protection of Citizens Abroad. - American citizens abroad, whether native born or naturalized, and of whatever race or creed, must be secured in the enjoyment of all rights and privileges under our treaties, and wherever such rights are withheld by any country on the ground of race or religious faith, steps should be taken to secure the removal of such unjust discrimination.

Popular Election of Senators. - We advocate the popular election of United States Senators and of judges, both State and Federal, and favor a graduated Income tax and any constitutional amendment necessary to these ends.

Equality and Opportunity. - Equality and opportunity, the largest measure of individual liberty consistent with equal rights, the overthrow of the rule of special interest and the restoration of government by the majority exercised for the benefit of the whole community: these are the purposes to which the Independence party is pledged, and we invite the co-operation of all patriotic and progressive citizens, Irrespective of party, who are in sympathy with these principles and in favor of their practical enforcement.

http://tinyurl.com/lg97lbd

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Hearst: Yellow journalism is "furiously active" journalism

From the London M.A.P. (Mainly About People), June 13th, 1908, a conversation with William Randolph Hearst is recorded:
Mr. Hearst was once asked to define "yellow" journalism. "It is furiously active journalism," he replied, "journalism that is not content with merely printing news, but which aims rather to educate and influence its audience, and through it, to accomplish something for the benefit of the community and the and the whole country."

A larger view of this can be seen in W. T. Stead's character sketch of Hearst:

"'Yellow journalism,'" said Mr. Hearst, "is active journalism. It is the journalism which is not content with merely printing news, not content with merely securing an audience, but which seeks rather to educate and influence its audience, and through it to accomplish something for the benefit of the community and the whole country. My particular form of yellow journalism attacks special privilege and class distinction, and all things that I believe to be undemocratic and un-American. A journalism which employs the power of its vast audience to accomplish beneficial results for all the people is the Journalism of the Future. Better still, I think it is the Journalism of the Present. I cannot imagine why anyone should want to print a newspaper except for that purpose. I myself don't find any satisfaction in sensational news, comic supplements, dress patterns, and other features of journalism, except as they serve to attract an audience to whom the editorials in my newspapers are addressed. You must first get your congregation before you can preach to it, and educate it to an appreciation and practice of the higher ideals of life."

http://tinyurl.com/mdve8wa

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Matthew Arnold's warning about "The New Journalism"

Matthew Arnold was no fan of William Thomas Stead. In an article titled "Up to Easter", Arnold writes, among other things:
But we have to consider the new voters, the democracy, as people are fond of calling them. They have many merits, but among them is not that of being, in general, reasonable persons who think fairly and seriously. We have had opportunities of observing a new journalism which a clever and energetic man has lately invented. It has much to recommend it; it is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instincts ; its one great fault is that it is feather-brained. It throws out assertions at a venture because it wishes them true; does not correct either them or itself, if they are false; and to get at the state of things as they truly are seems to feel no concern whatever.

Well, the democracy, with abundance of life, movement, sympathy, good instincts, is disposed to be, like this journalism, feather-brained; just as the upper class is disposed to be selfish in its politics, and the middle class narrow.

The "clever and energetic man" he is referring to is William Thomas Stead. Arnold also wrote about Stead behind the scenes, having written this to his friend John Morley:

P.S. - Under your friend Stead, the P.M.G., whatever may be its merits, is fast ceasing to be literature.

Stead was the Pall Mall Gazette's editor.

Here is what Matthew Arnold is trying to warn people about: Government By Journalism a.k.a., "The New Journalism".

http://tinyurl.com/n7wwn49

Up To Easter, by Matthew Arnold

Up to Easter

By Matthew Arnold

PROFESSOR HUXLEY told us in this Review last month, that in his eyes the chief good is, in brief, freedom to say what he pleases, when he pleases. Singular ideal for so clear-sighted a man! It is the ideal of Mr. Dillon, and Mr. W. O'Brien, and apparently of the Gladstonian Liberals generally: if Mr. Dillon and Mr. W. O'Brien please to say 'disagreeable things,' it is monstrous and intolerable, says Mr. John Morley, that they should be prevented. For my part, as I grow old, and profit, I hope, by the lessons of experience, I think the chief good, that which above all makes life worth living, is to be of use. In pursuit of this good, I find myself from time to time brought, as almost every one in the present critical juncture must be brought, to politics. I know the objections to meddling with them; I know and can perfectly understand the impatience and irritation which my intervention in these matters causes to many people. Nothing I should like better than to feel assured that I should never have occasion to write a line on politics again. I write on other subjects with much more pleasure; and it is true, quite true, that there are springs of movement in politics which one must be in the game to perceive and estimate fully - which an outsider, as he is called, cannot duly appreciate.

But on the other hand there is in practical politics a mass of insincerity, of phrase, fiction, and claptrap, which can impose, one would think, on no plain reasonable man outside of politics. This insincerity is found useful for purposes of party or faction; but there are moments when it is expedient for plain reasonable people, who have nothing to gain by it and everything to lose, to say to one another how hollow it all is. There are happily thousands of such people in this country, and they are the greater force here in England because to their plain reasonableness, which is a thing common enough where men have not interest to blind them, they add courage. They want nothing for themselves in politics, they only demand that the politician shall not bring the country into danger and disaster. To them, as one to whom some of them are not ill-disposed to listen, I speak ; as one of themselves, as one who wants nothing for himself through politics, who is too old, and of habits and tastes too formed, to wish to enter the House of Commons even if he could ; whose one concern with politics is that the politicians should not bring the country into danger and disaster.

The force of which I have been speaking has defeated Mr. Gladstone ; but the call upon its activity and watchfulness is not yet over. It is very far from being over, although the prospects of a happy issue, if this great force remains active and watchful, are favourable. From time to time those who compose it should ask themselves how things stand at the moment to which we are come, what has been accomplished; what still remains to be accomplished; what is likely to lead us to success, what to failure: and this, at the short; pause brought by Easter, I now propose to do.

When Parliament met there were three questions making evidently the first and chief demand upon its attention : the questions of procedure, Ireland, local government. Procedure has been dealt with. The debate on the Address was proof enough, if any proof had been wanted, how urgent was the need of some power to stop debating prolonged for the purpose of delay and obstruction. The amiable leader of the House of Commons expressed his profound regret at having to propose the creation of such a power; he ought rather to have expressed profound regret at its not having been proposed long ago. Long ago the country had made up its mind that to pretend 'discussion' to be the object of such debates as those which have gone on in the House of Commons during the last few years was an absurdity; a conspicuous instance of that inveterate trick of parliamentary insincerity of which one is inclined to ask with Figaro, 'Who is being taken in by it?' It matters not what party it is which may seek to profit by such 'discussion,' whether Conservatives, or Radicals, or Parnellites: it should be made impossible. The state of the House of Commons, since such 'discussion' grew to prevail there, had become a scandal and a danger. Mr. Gladstone seems now doomed to live, move, and have his being in that atmosphere of rhetorical and parliamentary insincerity of which I have spoken; to him, therefore, it may be vain to urge that the state of the House of Commons alone was perhaps a change more serious for evil than all his catalogued jubilee-host: of Liberal reforms was a change for good. Instinctively, however, the country felt how grave was the danger, and was deeply relieved when the power of closure was carried.

It is a step of incalculable importance; a step restoring to the House of Commons free action, dignity, all that enables it to be a blessing to the country and not a bane. The form in which the power is conferred is a thing of minor importance as compared with the attainment of the power itself. Perhaps closure by a majority of three-fifths would have been a better form than that which has been adopted. That which has been adopted is in itself good and reasonable enough, and no one really doubts that the Speaker's leave will be given or refused with perfect fairness. But parliamentary insincerity is to be reckoned with, which certainly will never hesitate to denounce the Speaker's action as unfair, so often as it finds its own interest in doing so. This, however, is an inconvenience which we must now make up our minds to face, along with the other inconveniences of parliamentary insincerity. The great matter is that we have at last got the desired, the salutary, the indispensable power of closure. May it be applied wisely, but resolutely!

The debates on the Address and on Procedure were full of Ireland, but since those debates ended Ireland occupies the attention of Parliament with hardly an admixture of anything else. There is the Bill for making good certain shortcomings in the Land Act of 1881 which have become apparent, and there is the Crimes Bill. The first of these two Bills need not long detain us. The Act of 1881 may be a bad one, but if it exists and has to be worked, manifest shortcomings in it ought to be repaired. The Crimes Bill - the eighty-seventh Coercion Bill, so its enemies are fond of telling us, the eighty-seventh of our Coercion Bills, and the most savage and odious of them all - is the important matter in question just now. How is the country likely to take it ? how ought the country to take it? I have repeatedly urged that we might need a much more thorough repression of disorder than any we have had hitherto, but that much more thorough remedial measures were needed as well. Lord Spencer, a man who deserves all our respect, tells us that he has come to believe in Home Rule, because he found that 'repressive measures, accompanied though they had been by remedial measures, had not succeeded, though they for a time put down crime.' But surely the defect may have lain in the remedial measures. If they had been better, they might have succeeded; but unless crime is put down, and if law and government are powerless, your remedial measures, even though thorough and good, cannot have the chance of succeeding. Therefore whoever obstructs the repression of disorder, obstructs remedial measures. Meanwhile, as to the past, it is something to have put down crime, even if your remedial measures have turned out to be not yet what is right and sufficient.

Many Conservative candidates at the last election declared against coercion. They said with Mr. Pitt that they wished the Irish to live under equal laws with the English and Scotch, and they added that they were against all Coercion Bills for the future. If they had confined themselves to the first of their two propositions they would have been on impregnable ground. In truth the real necessity for the Crimes Bill arises from the Irish not being under equal laws with the English and Scotch. If an Englishman or a Scotchman commits murder, or mutilates animals, or cuts off a girl's hair and tars her head, he can with certainty be punished; an Irishman, at present, cannot. It is to make the convictions and sentences of the criminal law reach the Irish criminal as they reach the English or Scotch criminal, that a Crimes Act is at present necessary. If the Conservatives stuck obstinately to their second proposition, they would be making it impossible to give effect to their first. They do well, therefore, to confess that their essential proposition was their first one, and that their second, which they imagined to mean but the same thing as their first, was a mistake. The country did not commit their mistake, and can have no difficulty in concluding that if the Irish ought, as certainly they ought, to live under equal laws with the English and Scotch, and to have impunity for crime no more than we have, a Crimes Act may under the present circumstances be necessary, and to this conclusion the country will, I believe, certainly come.

I myself could have wished that the government had seen its way to act administratively, and by the common law, with much more vigour than it did. My opinion that it was in their power to do so counts for very little, but it is an opinion held also, I know, by men well entitled to judge. How much a government can do administratively, under the common law, in such a state of things as that which prevails in Ireland, has never fairly been tried. It needs resolution to try it, but to try it might have been well, and might have shown government that it had much more strength than it supposed. 'The laws,' says Burke with his usual wisdom, 'reach but a very little way. Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state.'

Our ministers, however, instead of boldly using the large powers given to them by the common law to prevent crime and outrage, prefer to proceed by statute. Their preference is natural enough. They have Great Britain in view, where the state of affairs and the temper of the people are not revolutionary, and where to proceed regularly by statute gives all the security needful. But the state of affairs and the temper of the people in a large part of Ireland is revolutionary. If we suppose parts of Great Britain in the same state, it would be preferable here also to act with vigour administratively, rather than to proceed by special statute. Administrative action is what certain emergencies require. The French republican government the other day did not prosecute the municipality of Marseilles for glorifying the Commune: it dissolved it.

In certain emergencies, therefore, vigorous administrative action may be required in some parts of one whole country under the same laws, although in other parts it is not required. Does such an emergency present itself in parts of Ireland? Is the state of affairs, the temper of the people, revolutionary there, and the law set at defiance? In Kerry, says Judge O'Brien, 'the law has ceased to exist: there is a state of war with authority and with the institutions of civilised life.' In other parts, terrorism, we are told, is regnant; there is quiet, because the orders of the League are obeyed without resistance. If resistance is attempted, crime comes swiftly to punish it. 'I am not fastidious,' says a lieutenant of Mr. Parnell, 'as to the methods by which the cause may be advanced : I do not say you should alone use dynamite, or the knife, or the rifle, or parliamentary agitation; but I hold no Irishman true who will not use all and each as the opportunity presents itself.' If resistance has made it necessary to 'advance the cause' by crime, convictions for crime can no longer be obtained. As to the law's being set at defiance in parts of Ireland, this will surely suffice.

Then as to the temper of revolution, Mr. Parnell declared his programme, with entire candour, some time ago in America. 'None of us, whether we are in America or in Ireland or wherever we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link that keeps Ireland bound to England.' But since then, he and his followers have consented, we are told, to be satisfied with Ireland's having the control of her own local affairs only, and for imperial affairs they will let her remain subject to the Crown and to the Imperial Parliament. And Mr. Godkin is angry with me for not believing them. But only the other day comes another lieutenant of Mr. Parnell and cries: 'Ireland a nation ! Strike a blow for Home Rule, the Irish nation, and the green flag of our people!' And another lieutenant avows at Chicago - a place very favourable to plain speaking - that it is 'the duty of the League to make the government of Ireland by England an impossibility.' Another declares that 'any person entering Ireland officially commissioned by England to any administrative office enters it at his peril.' A priest who refuses to give evidence in a court of justice is brought up for contempt of court, and a Board of Guardians, which has no concern whatever with the matter, publishes the following resolution: 'We condemn the brutal and tyrannical action of the authorities in arresting Father Kelleher, the respected and patriotic parish priest of Youghal.' Finally Mr. W. O'Brien, elate with his impunity at home, promises to his friends new worlds to conquer abroad: 'If Trench dares to lay a robber hand upon any honest man's home, we will hunt Lord Lansdowne with execrations out of Canada.'

This is the revolutionary temper and language which Mr. Gladstone formerly described as that of men 'marching through rapine to the disintegration of the Empire,' but which, since the last election, he and his friends prefer to call 'the disorder inevitable while the responsibility for the maintenance of order is withdrawn from the leaders chosen by the majority of the Irish people.' With them, with the very holders, therefore, of the language just quoted, are 'the influences of moderation and legality' which will give us all that we want, if we do but surrender Ireland to Mr. Parnell and his lieutenants. And I suppose it is in order to enable us to believe this the more readily that Mr. Dillon says: 'The magistrates and police know perfectly well that Mr. Parnell will be their master, as he will be the master of this country, within a very short time.' One can feel the balmy 'influences of moderation' beginning to breathe already. And Mr. Morley is shocked that people should be prevented from saying the 'disagreeable' things which have been above quoted. He and Mr. Gladstone are shocked that we should even call them 'revolutionary,' and talk of repressing them, when they proceed from 'the representatives of Ireland.' If they proceeded from the representatives of Yorkshire they would alike be revolutionary, alike need repression. I wonder how far Mr. Morley's indulgence would extend. I believe he is kindly disposed to me, as I am sure I am kindly disposed to him; yet I should not like to be brought before him, as president of a Committee of Public Safety, on a charge of incivism. I suspect he would be capable of passing a pretty sharp sentence with 'sombre acquiescence.' At any rate the 'disagreeable' sayings and doings which in his Irish friends he cannot bear to check would in any other country of Europe infallibly bring down upon the performers the 'state of siege.'

For they are really and truly the sayings and doings of revolution, as different as possible from those of lawful political agitation familiar in this country. The latter may be a safety-valve; the former is an incendiary fire. Its kindlers and feeders do not exhale their passion by what they are doing and saying: they heighten it. By holding such furious language as theirs, a man in Great Britain finds that he diminishes his importance, and stops; in Ireland he finds that he increases it, and therefore proceeds more hotly than ever. 'What you make it men's interest to do,' says Burke, 'that they will do.' The more they have free play, the more do the sayers of such things as I have been quoting get drunk with rage and hatred themselves, and make their followers drunk with them also.

It is of no use deceiving ourselves, and holding insincere language. I regretted to see Mr. Balfour congratulating himself on the number of meetings which had been held without hindrance. Perhaps he congratulates himself, too, on the Dublin municipality being undissolved, or the resolving board of guardians. Perhaps Mr. Forster congratulated himself on United Ireland appearing quite regularly. I suppose being in Parliament debauches the mind and makes it lose all sense that make-believe of this kind is not only insincere but absurd. Else Mr. Gladstone would not gravely tell us that such debates as have of late gone on in the House of Commons were 'protracted discussion which was required,' and that he 'can conceive no greater calamity to the House of Commons' than the frequent cutting-short of such debates by the closure. Sir George Trevelyan would not tell us that 'the real defect' of the Crimes Bill is that 'it is directed against the written and spoken expression of opinion.' As if all that chooses to call itself debate and discussion were really such! As if, because in general the expression of opinion should be free, you must allow the expression of all opinion, at all times, and under all circumstances! This is adopting Professor Huxley's theory of the summum bonum with a vengeance. In the present state of Ireland, is Mr. Parnell's 'None of us will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link that keeps Ireland bound to England;' is Mr. Harris's 'If the tenant farmers shot down landlords as partridges are shot down in September, Matt Harris never would say one word against them;' is Mr. W. O'Brien's 'If Trench dares to lay a robber hand upon any honest man's home, we will hunt Lord Lansdowne with execrations out of Canada,' expression of opinion which it is wise to permit, and with which it is a real defect in the Government to interfere? A man must surely have deluged his mind with make-believe before he can think or even say so. Anywhere else in Europe, as I have said, such expression of opinion, and what is now going on Ireland, would be met by the state of siege. For the sake of the Irish themselves it is wrong and cruel to let it continue. The whole force of reasonable opinion in this country will go with the Government in stopping it. Whether Government should have proceeded administratively or by special statute may be a question; but the important thing is to stop the state of things and the language now prevailing in parts of Ireland, and as the Government have elected to proceed by statute, they should be supported. And with regard to details of the statute, the end to be attained should be steadily kept in view. A man may dislike, for instance, the change of venue, but he must keep in mind the end to be attained, conviction on clear proof of guilt. Can a conviction for murder, even on clear proof, be now secured without change of venue? If not, the Government ought to be supported in changing it. But the real mind of the country, if the Government will be frank with it and trust it, may be relied upon, I hope, much more than politicians, for not being led off from the real aim by cries and pretexts.

I hope so, and I believe so too; and therefore merely to exhort reasonable people, who are happily a great force in this country, to be steady as they have hitherto been, to brush insincerities aside, to keep in clear view the dangerous features of disorder in Ireland at present, and to support the Government in quelling it, I should not now be writing. It is what is to come after quelling it that has the great interest for me. I am not afraid of a refusal by the reasonable people of this country for the powers necessary to quell disorder; I am only afraid of their not insisting strongly enough on a further thing - how much, after it is quelled, will still require to be done. Not that they do not sincerely desire to give Ireland the due control of her own affairs. I am convinced that the great body of reasonable people in this country do, as I have repeatedly said, sincerely desire and intend two things: one, to defeat Mr. Gladstone's dangerous plan of Home Rule; the other, to remove all just cause of Irish complaint, and to give to the people of Ireland the due control of their own local affairs. But how large and far-reaching are the measures required to do this, I am afraid many of us do not adequately conceive. Yet, if these measures are not forthcoming, Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule will certainly arrive.

The Gladstonian contention is now, as we all know, that for the disordered state of Ireland 'no remedy is possible until the national aspirations of the Irish people are gratified.' The cry of the Irish people is, 'Ireland a nation! Strike a blow for Home Rule, the Irish nation, and the green flag of our people!' The Gladstonian cry is, 'A separate Parliament and separate Executive for Ireland.' Both cries lead in the end to the same thing, and a thing full of mischief and danger both for Great Britain and Ireland - a separate Ireland.

To this they lead, as the great body of reasonable people in England perceived instinctively, and as no reasonable person who has not an interest in being insincere with himself can fail to perceive. It would not be possible for Ireland to possess, without using it for getting more, such a vantage-ground as a separate Parliament and Executive would give her, any more than it would have been possible for the Americans of the South to possess, without using it for getting more, such a vantage-ground as a separate Southern Congress and Executive would have supplied. Such is the nature of things. In the case of Ireland we have our warning, not only from the nature of things, but from the express words of the Irish themselves, who when they are free to speak their real mind tell us that they 'will not be satisfied until they have destroyed the last link that keeps Ireland bound to England,' and that what they want is 'Ireland a nation, and the green flag of our people.' I can understand Mr. Gladstone shutting his eyes to what is sure to happen, because he can shut or open his eyes to whatever he pleases, and has his mind full of a great piece of parliamentary management which will insure to him the solid Irish vote and seat him firmly again in power. I can understand his partisans shutting their eyes to it, some out of fidelity to his person, some out of fidelity to their party, others from reasons which I will not now stay to draw out. But that any reasonable man, letting his mind have fair play, should doubt that Mr. Gladstone's 'separate Parliament and Executive for Ireland' leads by a rapid incline to Mr. W. O'Brien's 'Ireland a nation, and the green flag of our people,' I cannot understand. Nor can I understand his doubting that this has danger.

We confuse ourselves with analogies from distant and unlike countries, which have no application. Let us take our analogy from close at hand, where the political incorporation has been, and is, the same as that of Ireland with England. Provence was once a nation, the Nation Provencale, as down to the end of the last century it was still called. A sagacious lawyer, Portalis, remonstrating in 1798 against a uniform legislation for France, declared that France was a country composé dc divers peuples, 'composed of different peoples,' and it was for Provence, in particular, that Portalis spoke. Whatever Ireland had to make her a nation, that Provence had also. Ireland's troubled history can show one beautiful and civilising period in the far past; but Provence founded modern literature. It had its own Estates and Parliament; it had t-he greatest of French orators, Mirabeau. Well, if Provence were discontented to-day, and demanded back its separate Estates and nationality, what should we think of a French statesman, a French political party, which declared that for the discontent of Provence there was 'no remedy possible until the national aspirations of the Provencal people are gratified?' We should say they were lunatics. If they went on to inflame and infuriate the discontent by all the means in their power, calling the incorporation with France 'disgraceful,' and expatiating on the 'infamy and corruption' through which it had been brought about, we should say they were criminal lunatics.

As for Provence being a nation, we should say that she was indeed a nation poetically, but not now politically, and that to make her now a nation politically would be suicide both for France and herself. And if some well-meaning ex-prefect, like Lord Spencer, were to plead as a reason for making Provence a nation politically, that 'repressive measures, accompanied though they had been by remedial measures, had not succeeded,' and that therefore 'they ought to use the Provencal spirit of nationality, having failed in the past from not having sufficiently consulted the wishes of Provence in that respect,' what should we say? We should say he was a most extraordinary reasoner. We should say that if his remedial measures had not succeeded, that was probably because they were bad and insufficient; and not till the right remedial measures had been sought and applied far more seriously than hitherto, need France think of committing suicide by erecting Provence, and probably this and that other part of France afterwards, following the example of Provence, into a separate nation again. In fact, means have been found, without 'using the Provencal spirit of nationality,' to make Provence perfectly contented in her incorporation with France. And so they have to be found, and may be found, for Ireland.

It is a consolation for us in the troublous times through which we are passing, that we have public men who appear to possess, distributed amongst them, the powers requisite for discerning and treating all the capital facts of the situation : one having the powers needed for dealing with one branch of such facts, another of another. Mr. Gladstone is no doubt a source of danger. The historian will some day say of him what was said by the preacher of an eccentric funeral sermon in Mayfair Chapel on Frederick, Prince of Wales: 'He had great virtues; indeed they degenerated into vices; he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people; and then his condescension was such that he kept very bad company.' But as a compensation for our dangers from Mr. Gladstone, we have in Lord Hartington a statesman who has shown that he thoroughly grasps the meaning of Gladstonian Home Rule, sees where the proposal to give Ireland a separate Parliament and Executive leads, and is staunch in rejecting it, clear and keen in judging fallacious securities offered with it. Such a security is the retention of the Irish members at Westminster. Their retention, if their brethren wielded the legislature and executive of Ireland, would but double, as Lord Hartington truly saw, our dangers and difficulties.

All Lord Hartington's firmness will be needed. It has suited Mr. Gladstone and his friends to launch their new doctrine that no constraint must be put upon the Irish, and that there is no remedy for the disorder there until the national aspirations of the Irish are gratified. I have said that no reasonable man, who thinks fairly and seriously, can doubt that to gratify these aspirations by reconstituting Ireland as a nation politically, is full of dangers. But we have to consider the new voters, the democracy, as people are fond of calling them. They have many merits, but among them is not that of being, in general, reasonable persons who think fairly and seriously. We have had opportunities of observing a new journalism which a clever and energetic man has lately invented. It has much to recommend it; it is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instincts; its one great fault is that it is feather-brained. It throws out assertions at a venture because it wishes them true; does not correct either them or itself, if they are false; and to get at the state of things as they truly are seems to feel no concern whatever. Well, the democracy, with abundance of life, movement, sympathy, good instincts, is disposed to be, like this journalism, feather-brained; just as the upper class is disposed to be selfish in its politics, and the middle class narrow. The many restraints of their life particularly incline the democracy to believe with Mr. Fox that if people very much desire a thing they ought to have it, and that, therefore, the national aspirations of the Irish ought to be gratified. They do not look to the end and forecast consequences. When they are told that if we satisfy the national aspirations of the Irish the Irish will love us, and that all will thenceforth go well, they believe it because they wish to believe it. If they are told that the Bill for dealing with disorder in Ireland is savage and odious beyond precedent, they believe it, because to think this of a restraining measure is agreeable to them. The democracy is by its nature feather-brained; the English nation is not; and the democracy will in England work itself, probably, at last clear. But at present, even here, in England, and above all in those industrial centres where it is most left to itself, and least in contact with other classes, it is disposed to be featherbrained. This makes the strength of Mr. Gladstone. The great body of reasonable opinion in England is against him on Home Rule, and in Lord Hartington we have a leader convinced and firm; but we must not deceive ourselves. The democracy is being plied with fierce stimulants, and is agitated and chafing. If we cannot remove all just cause of complaint in Ireland, cannot produce, for local government there and for the land, a plan manifestly reasonable and good, the democracy will burst irresistibly in, bearing Mr. Gladstone in triumph back to power, and Home Rule along with him.

Lord Salisbury has declared his belief that 'remedial measures, and remedial measures of a very far-reaching tendency, are strongly called for by the condition of things in Ireland.' Undoubtedly they are, and to hug ourselves in the belief that they are not, but that all which is required is to put down disorder, is fatal. Some people say Ireland has no more cause of complaint than England or Scotland. One of these gentlemen wrote the other day to a newspaper saying that Ireland had even less, because she has not an established church. This is like congratulating Mr. Gladstone on living under the blessings of a Divorce Act, or Mr. Beresford Hope on having the prospect of soon being allowed to marry his deceased wife's sister.

A man peculiarly well informed on the matter, Mr. Edwin Chadwick, asserts that in several important branches of local government (he mentions the Poor Law system in especial) Ireland has the advantage of England. No doubt he is right. But this advantage is something' devised and conferred by superior authority: the question is whether the call of the community itself for a thing desired by it and fairly reasonable, is not more likely to be thwarted in Ireland than in Great Britain. Most certainly it is. Let me take a single instance in illustration: I will be as brief as possible. I believe that public aid was desired for a Catholic training school for elementary teachers in Ireland, and that Lord Spencer thought the desire reasonable, and wished it to be complied with. Denominational training schools, as we call them, have in Great Britain, and have long had, the bulk of their expense supplied from public funds. But the moment the members from northern Ireland got wind of the matter, they were indignant, and protested against the project. Probably the northern members would have had the support of British Nonconformity and secularism: 'the Liberal party has emphatically condemned religious endowment.' At any rate Lord Spencer foresaw a storm, and the project was not persisted in. But how reasonable and permissible a thing, how entirely a thing within the fair scope of a community's wishes, to have in a part of Ireland, where the vast bulk of the community is Catholic, a Catholic training school with public aid; and how irritating to find that in Great Britain there are denominational training schools with public aid, because the community wishes it; but in Ireland, although the community may wish it, it cannot have them!

I have often said that one has no need to go beyond Church and education to see how completely Great Britain, while talking pompously of 'the tolerance of the British Constitution,' has had two sets of weights and measures, one for itself and another for Ireland. The tolerance of the British Constitution consists in letting Irish revolutionists say whatever they like; a liberty often extremely bad for them. But in complying with the fair wishes of the Catholic community in Ireland the tolerance of the British Constitution utterly disappears. I feel the more strongly on this matter because of what I have seen abroad, in acquainting myself with the humble but everywhere present public service of popular education. There indeed there is absolute equality of treatment; there indeed there is not a double set of weights and measures; there you will never find a Protestant community indulged with a training school of its own, while a Catholic community is denied one. Goethe used to pray: 'God give us clear notions of the consequences of things.' If the British Philistine could ever frame such a prayer and have it granted, he would come to understand how completely Archbishop Walsh and Archbishop Croke are the consequences of things of our own doing. No doubt the Vatican disapproves their action ; but how must the Vatican at the same time secretly feel that it serves us right!

It is undeniable that a fairly reasonable wish of the community in Ireland is more likely to be thwarted than in England and Scotland. That is a reason against leaving the Imperial Parliament to go on controlling Irish local affairs. But who, with Colonel Saunderson and Mr. Sexton present to his mind, will believe that in the present state of tempers the Catholic Irish in an Irish Parliament would duly entertain reasonable wishes of the Protestants of the north, or the Protestant Irish those of Catholics of the south ? This is an objection to Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule not from an imperial point of view any longer, but from a purely Irish one. The fairly reasonable wishes of the community, in the respective parts of Ireland, ought to be made possible of attainment by the community. 'Ireland a nation, and the green flag of our people,' is not a fairly reasonable wish. But a Catholic training school is.

Whoever has had occasion to learn the course of public business in foreign countries, knows what we lose for want of proper local government in Great Britain. The House of Commons is far too large; a quantity of business comes before it which it should not have to discharge. Of our numerous House of Commons very many men are members, and unfit for such a position, who would be excellently fitted for local assemblies, which do not, however, exist to receive them. The best thing I have observed in New England is the effect of the training in local government upon the average citizen there. With us, little is known of systems of local government, and there is no cry for the thing; to discredit it, to throw out the scoff of the Heptarchy, is easy enough. But it is unpatriotic and unwise. Infinitely more unpatriotic and unwise is the neglect of this remedy in Ireland, where the want of it has had special bad consequences which it has not had in Great Britain, and which are full of danger. It should be made as serious, important, and strong there, as possible.

The county is too small a basis to take even in rich and populous England, except in a very few cases. Certainly it is too small a basis to take in Ireland. Every one sees how the province in Ireland affords a larger unit at once convenient and natural. I do not know what arrangements might be the best in the interests simply of local business. But it is important to remark that politically there could be no objection to resolving the provincial assemblies of Ireland into two only, one for the Catholic South and another for the Protestant North. The formidable political danger of Mr. Gladstone's one Parliament and Executive for all Ireland is that such a power would most surely be tempted, so far as we can at present foresee, to pose as a separate nation with a policy contrary to that of Great Britain. But an assembly for a part only of Ireland cannot so pose; the assembly and government of the Catholic South will be balanced by those of the Protestant North, which is smaller, indeed, in extent and numbers, but superior in wealth, energy, and organisation. The governments would balance one another politically, and administratively would each do simply their own business, which in the furious conflicts of a joint assembly would often suffer or be left undone. Many men who now have no trade but agitation would become good and useful citizens in the field of activity opened by these assemblies and their business. The flower of the political talent of Ireland would find its place in the Imperial Parliament.

Mr. Reginald Brett says that no other Irish policy is possible than Mr. Gladstone's, 'which was right in principle, but faulty in vital details.' This is in the sacred language of the practical politicians, to which a plain outsider has not the key. But let us hope that the plan of two assemblies may be sutficiently like Mr. Gladstone's to pass with Mr. Brett as Gladstonian in principle, possible, and desirable.

The reason of the country judged Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule dangerous. It perceives, however, the need of local government for Ireland, and leaves the plan of it to the Government; only let us insist that what is done shall be effectual. Happily we have in Mr. Goschen a statesman as fit for planning local government as Lord Hartington is for combating Gladstonian Home Rule.

Finally, there is the land question. Mr. Gladstone's missionaries are sent out to cry that all the Conservative Government wants is to enable the landlords to extort their unjust rents. Of course some danger there is that the Conservative party may not be stringent enough in dealing with landlords. But evidently something has to be done. It is confessed that the Bill for admitting leaseholders to the benefit of the Act of 1881, and for preventing harsh evictions, is a measure of temporary relief only. The Act of 1881 has failed, as it was likely to fail. I may say so, for I said so in 1881, provoking somewhat, I may add, my friend Mr. John Morley by my want of faith. By that Act, I said, 'ownership and tenure will be made quite a different thing in Ireland from that which they are in England, and in countries of our sort of civilisation generally, and this is surely a disadvantage." An adumbration of dual ownership there was in Irish land-tenure already; such an ownership, with such parties to it, had elements of trouble ; the thing was to get rid of it. Instead of getting rid of it, the Act of 1881 developed and strengthened it. What we all now see to be desirable, is to have one owner, and that owner, as far as possible, the cultivator.

The reason of the country supports the Government in quelling revolutionary anarchy in Ireland, and in restoring the rule of law and order there. Here it is as conservative as the Conservative party. But it has no landlord bias, and in its judgment on Irish landlords it is disposed to be severe. 'Mere land-merchants,' too many of them, says their own friend Croker; 'from their neglect of their duties springs their difliculty with their rents, and the general misery and distraction.' Often 'insolent' besides; an offence which the Irish peasant resents more even than oppression. It is a terrible indictment ; and there are landlords still against whom it might justly be brought. The Land Purchase Commissioner of the government 'has known rack-renting prevail to an extent simply shocking;' Sir Redvers Buller desires 'a court with a very strong coercive power on a bad landlord.'

Landlordism, as we know it in these islands, has disappeared from most countries. It depends on the consent of the community. In England, as I have often said, it has kept this consent partly through the moderation of the people, but above all through that of the landlords themselves. It has become impossible to maintain by the force of England the system of landlordism where it has not, as in England itself, the consent of the community; and this the reason and conscience of England begin to feel more and more. Mr. Chamberlain, I believe, is the statesman who might be proctor for the real mind of the country on this matter, as Lord Hartington might be proctor for it on the matter of Home Rule, and Mr; Goschen on that of local government. It seems admitted, however, that if we organise local government in Ireland, we yet cannot leave, as would be natural, the community itself to deal with the landlords there : the Government of the Catholic South with the landlords of the South, that of the Protestant North with those of the North England and its Government are partly accountable for the faults of the landlords and for their present position. The Imperial Parliament must therefore help in solving the land question. But Mr. Gladstone's twenty years' purchase all round is as little pleasing to the mind of the country as his Home Rule. No solution will satisfy the mind and conscience of the country which does not regard equity, discriminate between the good landlord and the bad, and lance the deep imposthume of moral grievance.

Sir George Trevelyan adheres to his passionate love for the Liberal party, his passionate grief at its not being in power. I am too old for these romantic attachments. Sir George Trevelyan himself confesses that 'it is impossible for young politicians to have any idea of the half-heartedness of the Liberal politics of the past.' I confess that I am not sanguine about those of the near future. Why then should we be so very eager to take up again with 'the tabernacle of Moloch,' Mr. Gladstone's old umbrella, or 'the star of our god Remphan,' the genial countenance of Sir William Harcourt, merely in order to pass forty years in the wilderness of the Deceased Wife's Sister? If the Conservative Government will quell anarchy in Ireland, give us a sound plan of local government there, and deal effectually with the land question, we may be well satisfied to allow them the lease of power requisite for this, and I believe the country will let them have it.

Matthew Arnold.

Matthew Arnold to John Morley, M. P.

To John Morley, M. P.

Cobham, April 8, 1884.

My Dear Morley - In spite of your prohibition, I was fully intending to answer your kind letter when the rush of arrears on me had a little subsided. The thought of you, and of one or two others, was often present to me in America, and no doubt contributed to make me hold fast to 'the faith once delivered to the saints,' though, in truth, I have not that talent for 'blague' and mob-pleasing, which is a real talent, and tempts many men to apostasy.

I have shaken hands with friends of whom I had never seen or heard, but who are going the same way as myself, and who have found me a help to them for some years past.

It must have been one of these friends who wrote the article for the Sunday issue of the Boston Herald - a coarse paper, but perhaps the strongest in America - of which I think you may like to read the full text.

I will send the Emerson. I have not yet read your essay on him - I have read nothing, - but I imagine we are pretty well in sympathy about him. - Ever yours affectionately,

Matthew Arnold

P.S. - Under your friend Stead, the P.M.G., whatever may be its merits, is fast ceasing to be literature.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

THE PRESIDENT AND THE NEGRO, The Nation (a 1913 editorial)

THE PRESIDENT AND THE NEGRO August 7th, 1913

Mr. Wilson finds himself thus early in his Administration at the parting of the ways in the matter of the negro citizen. His nomination of Mr. A. E. Patterson, of Oklahoma, as Register of the Treasury, has been withdrawn at the nominee's request, and for the first time in a quarter of a century the office is to go to some one other than to a negro. Mr. Patterson asked to be allowed to withdraw because of the violent opposition of the negrophobe Southern Senators - Vardaman, Tillman, Hoke Smith, and the rest. That he lacked the courage to stick it out and to insist on having his name passed upon is greatly to be regretted. In a sense, he was recreant to his race; that he has not helped either Mr. Wilson or the colored people appears clearly from Vardaman's glorying. No negro, says the confident Senator, shall be appointed to any executive office in which there may be subordinate white employees; and his platform contains these further demands: "Segregation in all forms of Government employment; the entire separation of the races in Federal employ; negroes and white people must not be compelled to work side by side." The integrity of the Anglo-Saxon race, Mr. Vardaman adds, depends upon, the "faithful consummation" of this programme. What a delicate integrity it must be!

For the first time since we have heard of him, it occurs to us that this Senator from Mississippi is serving a useful purpose. He has flung down a challenge to this Democratic Administration which Mr. Wilson cannot avoid. Shall the President give up the historic right of the Executive to appoint to office, to the extent at least of permitting a fraction of the Senate to bar out ten millions of American citizens from serving the Government, save in the lowest positions, and then as lepers set apart? Does he sympathize wholly or in, any degree with the attitude of Hoke, Smith and Vardaman? Is he going to ignore the colored man in his appointments hereafter, or is he going to select some one who will stick, and then fight it out on that line, whether it takes all summer or the rest of his Administration? Shall he fling the negro overboard after more of that race voted for Wilson than for any other Democratic candidate; shall he be a just President of all the American people, or only of those of the white race? Is the “New Freedom’ to be accepted as preaching political doctrines whose truths are no longer truths when they meet the color line?

We understand, of course, how uncomfortable it must be for the President to encounter the enmity of the Southern Senators at this time. His tariff bill and his currency measure are before them, and his whole legislative programme not yet formulated will go before them next winter. But he has excellent Democratic precedent for stubbornly taking his position against them and sticking to it. Mr. Cleveland nominated a colored man to this same office of Register of the Treasury, and when, after a long struggle, he could not obtain his confirmation, he sent in the name of another one and had his way. Mr. Roosevelt's long fight on behalf of the confirmation of Dr. W.D. Crum, of Charleston, S. C, was altogether one of the finest things in his Administration. Can Mr. Wilson do less? We do not see how it is possible for him to steer a course of compromise and expediency in this matter, and we can not believe that he wishes to do so. The assurances that he gave to the negro delegations which called upon him during the campaign would forbid it, did he not naturally subscribe to the doctrine of all men up and none down.

So far as the colored people are concerned, they are already deeply stirred by the action of several of Mr. Wilson's Cabinet officers in segregating the negro employees within their Departments - in some cases they are screened off in corners as if even their aspect were contaminating. As usual in such cases, the excuse is that it is all for the negroes' welfare. That they are thereby rendered more safe in the possession of their offices, and are less likely to be discriminated against, is the sincere belief or some who have had part in this innovation. They do not see that this for the first time officially establishes a caste among the citizens and employees of the Federal Government; that within a short time the negro sections will be pointed to as the "nigger departments" and made the objects of the derision and hate of such men as Vardaman and Hoke Smith and their less conspicuous imitators; that the "nigger sections" will become as despised and as neglected as the "Jim Crow" car. So far from helping the negro to retain office, it will soon make it impossible for self-resperting negroes to enter a service which begins by classifying them as people who must be set off lest mere contact with them should result in some kind of moral contamination. In the Far South every fresh act of discrimination, every additional effort to degrade and to humiliate, will allege its justification by this action of the Federal Government. That all of this will go without challenge is not to be expected. The Progressive Senators are already alive to their opportunity. The colored people themselves are beginning to be heard from, and their political influence is not to be despised. But we do not believe that this phase of it will concern Mr. Wilson. We think that when the matter is put before him in its true light, he will withhold his sanction from it, just as we believe that he will not permit any Southern reactionaries, however influential, to deter him from giving, in the matter of offices, fair play to a heavily disadvantaged race.

Archive.org

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Original statement of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (1905)

This original document, signed by, among others, J.G. Phelps Stokes, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Oscar Lovell Triggs, Clarence S. Darrow, B.O. Flower, William English Walling, Leonard D. Abbott, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair. Its complete text is as follows:
In the opinion of the undersigned the recent remarkable increase in the Socialist vote in America should serve as an indication to the educated men and women in the country that Socialism is a thing concerning which it is no longer wise to be indifferent.

The undersigned, regarding its aims and fundamental principles with sympathy, and believing that in them will ultimately be found the remedy for many far reaching economic evils, propose organizing an association to be known as the Intercollegiate Socialist Society for the purpose of promoting an intelligent interest in Socialism among college men, graduate and undergraduate, through the formation of study clubs in the colleges and universities and the encouraging of all legitimate endeavors to awaken an interest in Socialism among the educated men and women of the country.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Abraham Lincoln recognized the necessity of slavery at the time of the Founding

Slavery is certainly an evil practice, but in no way is it "America's Original Sin".

Abraham Lincoln recognized this. In Lincoln's "Peoria Speech", (speech text) which as far as I know is his first major speech regarding Slavery, he spoke the following in regard to the Founding and the Founding Fathers:

I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people - a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity we forget right - that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it. The argument of "Necessity" was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only as it carried them, did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could not help; and they cast blame upon the British King for having permitted its introduction. before the constitution, they prohibited its introduction into the north-western Territory - the only country we owned, then free from it. At the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word "slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "person held to service or labor." In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing, shall think proper to admit," etc. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers could not do; and more they would not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.

Lincoln continued, by laying out the case step by step:

In 1794, they prohibited an out-going slave-trade - that is, the taking of slaves from the United States to sell.

In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, into the Mississippi Territory - this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was ten years before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.

In 1800 they prohibited American citizens from trading in slaves between foreign countries - as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.

In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.

In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808 - the very first day the constitution would permit - prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.

In 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death.

While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits. Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the principle, and toleration, only by necessity.

The Founding Fathers blamed the British King for slavery - Abraham Lincoln, by using the word "necessity", would seemingly be in agreement with the Founders that the British King is to blame for slavery.

Yet American Progressives blame the Founders for slavery. What's wrong with this picture here? If the King is to blame, then it cannot possibly be America's original sin. Let's give credit where credit is due, finally.

In 1854, Historian George Bancroft wrote the following: (History of the U.S., page 413)

"The inhabitants of Virginia were controlled by the central authority on a subject of still more vital importance to them and their posterity. Their halls of legislation had resounded with eloquence directed against the terrible plague of negro slavery. Again and again they had passed laws, restraining the importations of negroes from Africa; but their laws were disallowed. How to prevent them from protecting themselves against the increase of the overwhelming evil was debated by the King in Council, and on the tenth day of December, 1770, he issued an instruction, under his own hand, commanding the Governor, "upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law, by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed." In April 1772, this rigorous order was solemnly debated in the Assembly of Virginia. "They were very anxious for an Act to restrain the introduction of people, the number of whom already in the Colony, gave them just cause to apprehend the most dangerous consequences, and therefore made it necessary that they should fall upon means not only of preventing their increase, but also of lessening their number. The interest of the country," it was said, "manifestly requires the total expulsion of them."

Benson J. Lossing also wrote about the King's pro-slavery dictate, and documented this section of an early version of the Declaration of Independence as a response: (Harpers, page 206)

The Assembly finally resolved to address the King himself on the subject, who, in council, had compelled the toleration of the traffic. They pleaded with him to remove all restraints upon their efforts to stop the importation of slaves, which they called " a very pernicious commerce." In this matter Virginia represented the sentiments of all the colonies, and the King knew it; but the monarch "stood in the path of humanity and made himself the pillar of the colonial slave-trade." Ashamed to reject the earnest and solemn appeal of the Virginians, he evaded a reply. The conduet of the King caused Jefferson to write as follows in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, capturing and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce."

I see no reasons to be ashamed of THIS! I am thankful for the kinds of people that our Founding Fathers were. Even on slavery, they got it right - by moving toward its destruction.

The only reason why the progressives can make any claims at all to a "original sin" of America, is because they have virtually wiped all of this history off of the face of the Earth. There's not a single history book printed today that contains this information. (excluding some specialty print somewhere) You have to dig into old history books - books which are more honest - to find this information.

We must correct this. Their revisionist ways cannot be allowed to stand any longer.

http://tinyurl.com/n3aazgz