announced his intention of exercising his own discretion in filling a public office; although the fulfilment of this intention has involved not a little friction between him and the party leaders, yet the President's independent attitude has been warmly received throughout the country. While on the subject of the New Politics, we cannot fail of paying a passing tribute to the growth of the Referendum principle in legislation. When Congress, Legislation, and Municipal Council fail to express the wishes of the people-when they are composed of professional politicians who cannot be trusted-then the evils of Democracy must be met by more democracy, and the Swiss principle of direct legislation by the people must be called in. This is the only way by which the growth of personal power under republican forms can be checked by those who feel that personal power should be checked. And it is undeniable that the mayor of our American city is vested with too much power, considering the method by which he is chosen. It is undeniable that the movement for the great use of the Referendum is making rapid progress. Every party-Republican, Democratic, Populist Prohibitionhas declared for it on their platforms, an action, whether sincere or not of itself, significant of its popularity. In 1898 the Union Reform Party adopted it alone as its programme. In 1894 amendments for placing the Referendum in the Constitutions of New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts just missed passing in those States. In 1896 the South Dakota Legislature passed a constitutional amendment for the Referendum by two votes to one, and Utah and Oregon have followed suit. Many cities, including San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Detroit, boast a local Referendum. It would, on the whole, seem that the system is best adapted to local government to correct State and municipal scandals and abuses. But there are some who see in this extension of democracy visions of wild, howling mobs taking the law in their own hands and defying constitutional authority and the counsels of the wise. A referendum is obviously a dangerous system in a community where prejudice runs stronger than the spirit of order and fair play. The principle needs to be hedged round about in some States, and it ought not to be taken unless its need is clear. But it gives the people the last word, and the people would rather follow the initiative of a wise ruler they trust than an oligarchy they distrust a further corroboration of the Platonic proposition which I have put on my title-page. CHAPTER XV HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT In my chapter on the growth of Presidential power I have shown that the headship of the United States of America is not inferior, so far as actual power and direct authority go, to that held by any of the monarchs of Europe. It has already given employment to the pens of many ingenious and enthusiastic Transatlantic writers to parallel between the German ruler, or Emperor, William II., and the American ruler, or President, Theodore Roosevelt. Both of these illustrious personages, we are told, boast a "superabundant vitality, fearlessness, seeming disregard for public opinion, and many-sidedness." Nor does the parallel end here.1 The versatility of the Kaiser includes war, politics, art, science, and literature; and the same may be said of the President. William is forty-four years old; Theodore is precisely the same age. Both have been previously credited with rashness, impetuosity, and imprudence; both have, as rulers of great nations, lived to stultify their traducers. Names and titles do not 1 Sir W. Laird Clowes, a personal friend of the President's, points out that, on the other hand, "he has no love for state or ceremony, and is in no sense a poseur." This may well be. Mais-l'appetit vient en mangeant! signify actual power. Call the one, President Hohenzollern of the United States of Germany, and the other, Emperor Theodore of the Empire of America, and you need not be at the pains of adding to the one or subtracting from the other one jot or tittle of the power which each now possesses as an actual, if not an inalienable, appurtenance of his high office. Let us pursue the resemblance, apart from character or the potentiality of office, into their respective situations. Both came into power as the legal successor of two men in whom all the world had confidence-men who represented wisdom, caution, and the personal love of the people. William's predecessor had died "crowned by the aureole of success, having created a nation, and having emerged victorious from a campaign that amazed the world." For a moment, when his successor took the oath of office, there was experienced a feeling of distrust, of national uncertainty, of apprehensiveness for the character and policy of his youthful successor. The same is true of Theodore Roosevelt. All fourpredecessors and successors in Germany and Americawere soldiers, and Theodore and William were to prove how groundless were the fears of their people; they were to show that both were men of peace and political sagacity, although both believed in the sword, and "longed for an opportunity to show how finely tempered was the blade." Theodore Roosevelt is the youngest President who has ever ruled America. He is a notable exception in being a gentleman by birth, and a scholar who knows his own country and Europe, who knows much of foreign languages. Moreover, he is the only President who ever sat in the chair of State who has served an apprenticeship in one of the great departments of State. Can there be any who will say that all this does not betoken an entirely new order of things? If there were no other fact from which we were able to deduce that a change has come over American politics it would be this. If another and cognate fact alone were needed, it would be that the head of the Cabinetvirtually his Prime Minister-is John Hay, a scholar and a poet, a man who, on visiting England a few years ago, was neither afraid nor ashamed to write such lines as these : "ON LANDING IN ENGLAND.1 "Once more, hail, England! Happy is the day Go over the roll of American Secretaries of State since Hamilton, and see if you can find amongst all those mediocrities one with the ability to write such lines, the sentiment to prompt them, the courage to publish them! 1 Pall Mall Magazine, December, 1894. |