SHORTCOMINGS OF THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD TAKE PART IN POLITICAL WORK.

The people of means in all great cities have in times past shamefully neglected their political duties, and have been contemptuously disregarded by the professional politicians in consequence. A number of them will get together in a large hall, will vociferously demand “reform,” as if it were some concrete substance which could be handed out to them in slices, and will then disband with a feeling of the most serene self-satisfaction, and the belief that they have done their entire duty as citizens and members of the community. It is an actual fact that four out of five of our wealthy and educated men, of those who occupy what is called good social position, are really ignorant of the nature of a caucus or a primary meeting, and never attend either. Now, under our form of government, no man can accomplish anything by himself; he must work in combination with others; and the men of whom we are speaking will never carry their proper weight in the political affairs of the country until they have formed themselves into some organization, or else, which would be better, have joined some of the organizations already existing. But there seems often to be a certain lack of the robuster virtues in our educated men, which makes them shrink from the struggle and the inevitable contact with rough politicians (who must often be rudely handled before they can be forced to behave); while their lack of familiarity with their surroundings causes them to lack discrimination between the politicians who are decent, and those who are not; for in their eyes the two classes both equally unfamiliar, are indistinguishable. Another reason why this class is not of more consequence in politics, is that it is often really out of sympathy—or, at least, its more conspicuous members are—with the feelings and interests of the great mass of the American people; and it is a discreditable fact that it is in this class that what has been most aptly termed the “colonial” spirit still survives. Until this survival of the spirit of colonial dependence is dead, those in whom it exists will serve chiefly as laughing-stocks to the shrewd, humorous, and prejudiced people who form nine tenths of our body-politic, and whose chief characteristics are their intensely American habits of thought, and their surly intolerance of anything like subservience to outside and foreign influences.

From different causes, the laboring classes, even when thoroughly honest at heart, often fail to appreciate honesty in their representatives. They are frequently not well informed in regard to the character of the latter, and they are apt to be led aside by the loud professions of the so-called labor reformers, who are always promising to procure by legislation the advantages which can only come to working men, or to any other men, by their individual or united energy, intelligence, and forethought. Very much has been accomplished by legislation for laboring men, by procuring mechanics’ lien laws, factory laws, etc.; and hence it often comes that they think legislation can accomplish all things for them; and it is only natural, for instance, that a certain proportion of their number should adhere to the demagogue who votes for a law to double the rate of wages, rather than to the honest man who opposes it. When people are struggling for the necessaries of existence, and vaguely feel, no matter how wrongly, that they are also struggling against an unjustly ordered system of life, it is hard to convince them of the truth that an ounce of performance on their own part is worth a ton of legislative promises to change in some mysterious manner that life-system.

In the country districts justice to a member is somewhat more apt to be done. When, as is so often the case, it is not done, the cause is usually to be sought for in the numerous petty jealousies and local rivalries which are certain to exist in any small community whose interests are narrow and most of whose members are acquainted with each other; and besides this, our country vote is essentially a Bourbon or Tory vote, being very slow to receive new ideas, very tenacious of old ones, and hence inclined to look with suspicion upon any one who tries to shape his course according to some standard differing from that which is already in existence.

The actual work of procuring the passage of a bill through the Legislature is in itself far from slight. The hostility of the actively bad has to be discounted in advance, and the indifference of the passive majority, who are neither very good nor very bad, has to be overcome. This can usually be accomplished only by stirring up their constituencies; and so, besides the constant watchfulness over the course of the measure through both houses and the continual debating and parliamentary fencing which is necessary, it is also indispensable to get the people of districts not directly affected by the bill alive to its importance, so as to induce their representatives to vote for it. Thus, when the bill to establish a State Park at Niagara was on its passage, it was found that the great majority of the country members were opposed to it, fearing that it might conceal some land-jobbing scheme, and also fearing that their constituents, whose vice is not extravagance, would not countenance so great an expenditure of public money. It was of no use arguing with the members, and instead the country newspapers were flooded with letters, pamphlets were circulated, visits and personal appeals were made, until a sufficient number of these members changed front to enable us to get the lacking votes.

LIFE IN THE LEGISLATURE.

As already said, some of us who usually acted together took a great deal of genuine enjoyment out of our experience at Albany. We liked the excitement and perpetual conflict, the necessity for putting forth all our powers to reach our ends, and the feeling that we were really being of some use in the world; and if we were often both saddened and angered by the viciousness and ignorance of some of our colleagues, yet, in return, the latter many times unwittingly furnished us a good deal of amusement by their preposterous actions and speeches. Some of these are worth repeating, though they can never, in repetition, seem what they were when they occurred. The names and circumstances, of course, have been so changed as to prevent the possibility of the real heroes of them being recognized. It must be understood that they stand for the exceptional and not the ordinary workings of the average legislative intellect. I have heard more sound sense than foolishness talked in Albany, but to record the former would only bore the reader. And we must bear in mind that while the ignorance of some of our representatives warrants our saying that they should not be in the Legislature, it does not at all warrant our condemning the system of government which permits them to be sent there. There is no system so good that it has not some disadvantages. The only way to teach our foreign-born fellow-citizens how to govern themselves, is to give each the full rights possessed by other American citizens; and it is not to be wondered at if they at first show themselves unskilful in the exercise of these rights. It has been my experience moreover in the Legislature that when Hans or Paddy does turn out really well, there are very few native Americans indeed who do better. A very large number of the ablest and most disinterested and public-spirited citizens in New York are by birth Germans; and their names are towers of strength in the community. When I had to name a committee which was to do the most difficult, dangerous, and important work that came before the Legislature at all during my presence in it, I chose three of my four colleagues from among those of my fellow-legislators who were Irish either by birth or descent. One of the warmest and most disinterested friends I have ever had or hope to have in New York politics, is by birth an Irishman, and is also as genuine and good an American citizen as is to be found within the United States.

A good many of the Yankees in the house would blunder time and again; but their blunders were generally merely stupid and not at all amusing, while, on the contrary, the errors of those who were of Milesian extraction always possessed a most refreshing originality.

INCIDENTS OF LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE.

In 1882 the Democrats in the house had a clear majority, but were for a long time unable to effect an organization, owing to a faction-fight in their own ranks between the Tammany and anti-Tammany members, each side claiming the lion’s share of the spoils. After a good deal of bickering, the anti-Tammany men drew up a paper containing a series of propositions, and submitted it to their opponents, with the prefatory remark, in writing, that it was an ultimatum. The Tammany members were at once summoned to an indignation meeting, their feelings closely resembling those of the famous fish-wife who was called a parallelopipedon. None of them had any very accurate idea as to what the word ultimatum meant; but that it was intensively offensive, not to say abusive, in its nature, they did not question for a moment. It was felt that some equivalent and equally strong term by which to call Tammany’s proposed counter-address must be found immediately; but, as the Latin vocabulary of the members was limited, it was some time before a suitable term was forthcoming. Finally, by a happy inspiration, some gentlemen of classical education remembered the phrase ipse dixit; it was at once felt to be the very phrase required by the peculiar exigencies of the case, and next day the reply appeared, setting forth with well-satisfied gravity that, in response to the County Democracy’s “ultimatum,” Tammany herewith produced her “ipse dixit.”

Public servants of higher grade than aldermen or assemblymen sometimes give words a wider meaning than would be found in the dictionary. In many parts of the United States, owing to a curious series of historical associations (which, by the way, it would be interesting to trace), anything foreign and un-English is called “Dutch,” and it was in this sense that a member of a recent Congress used the term when, in speaking in favor of a tariff on works of art, he told of the reluctance with which he saw the productions of native artists exposed to competition “with Dutch daubs from Italy”; a sentence pleasing alike from its alliteration and from its bold disregard of geographic trivialties.

Often an orator of this sort will have his attention attracted by some high-sounding word, which he has not before seen, and which he treasures up to use in his next rhetorical flight, without regard to the exact meaning. There was a laboring man’s advocate in the last Legislature, one of whose efforts attracted a good deal of attention from his magnificent heedlessness of technical accuracy in the use of similes. He was speaking against the convict contract-labor system, and wound up an already sufficiently remarkable oration with the still more startling ending that the system “was a vital cobra which was swamping the lives of the laboring men.” Now, he had evidently carefully put together the sentence beforehand, and the process of mental synthesis by which he built it up must have been curious. “Vital” was, of course, used merely as an adjective of intensity; he was a little uncertain in his ideas as to what a “cobra” was, but took it for granted that it was some terrible manifestation of nature, possibly hostile to man, like a volcano, or a cyclone, or Niagara, for instance; then “swamping” was chosen as describing an operation very likely to be performed by Niagara, or a cyclone, or a cobra; and behold, the sentence was complete.

Sometimes a common phrase will be given a new meaning. Thus, the mass of legislation is strictly local in its character. Over a thousand bills come up for consideration in the course of a session, but a very few of which affect the interests of the State at large. The latter and the more important private bills are, or ought to be, carefully studied by each member; but it is a physical impossibility for any one man to examine the countless local bills of small importance. For these we have to trust to the member for the district affected, and when one comes up the response to any inquiry about it is usually, “Oh, it’s a local bill, affecting so-and-so’s district; he is responsible for it.” By degrees, some of the members get to use “local” in the sense of unimportant, and a few of the assemblymen of doubtful honesty gradually come to regard it as meaning a bill of no pecuniary interest to themselves. There was a smug little rascal in one of the last legislatures, who might have come out of one of Lever’s novels. He was undoubtedly a bad case, but had a genuine sense of humor, and his “bulls” made him the delight of the house. One day I came in late, just as a bill was being voted on, and meeting my friend, hailed him, “Hello, Pat, what’s up? what’s this they’re voting on?” to which Pat replied, with contemptuous indifference to the subject, but with a sly twinkle in his eye, “Oh, some unimportant measure, sorr; some local bill or other—a constitutional amendment!”

The old Dublin Parliament never listened to a better specimen of a bull than was contained in the speech of a very genial and pleasant friend of mine, a really finished orator, who, in the excitement attendant upon receiving Governor Cleveland’s message vetoing the five-cent-fare bill, uttered the following sentence: “Mr. Speaker, I recognize the hand that crops out in that veto; I have heard it before!”

One member rather astonished us one day by his use of the word “shibboleth.” He had evidently concluded that this was merely a more elegant synonym of the good old word shillalah, and in reproving a colleague for opposing a bill to increase the salaries of public laborers, he said, very impressively, “The throuble wid the young man is, that he uses the wurrd economy as a shibboleth, wherewith to strike the working man.” Afterwards he changed the metaphor, and spoke of a number of us as using the word “reform” as a shibboleth, behind which to cloak our evil intentions.

A mixture of classical and constitutional misinformation was displayed a few sessions past in the State Assembly when I was a member of the Legislature. It was on the occasion of that annual nuisance, the debate upon the Catholic Protectory item of the Supply Bill. Every year some one who is desirous of bidding for the Catholic vote introduces this bill, which appropriates a sum of varying dimensions for the support of the Catholic Protectory, an excellent institution, but one which has no right whatever to come to the State for support; each year the insertion of the item is opposed by a small number of men, including the more liberal Catholics themselves, on proper grounds, and by a larger number from simple bigotry—a fact which was shown two years ago, when many of the most bitter opponents of this measure cheerfully supported a similar and equally objectionable one in aid of a Protestant institution. On the occasion referred to there were two assemblymen, both Celtic gentlemen, who were rivals for the leadership of the minority; one of them a stout, red-faced man, who may go by the name of the “Colonel,” owing to his having seen service in the army; while the other was a dapper, voluble fellow, who had at one time been a civil justice and was called the “Judge.” Somebody was opposing the insertion of the item on the ground (perfectly just, by the way) that it was unconstitutional, and he dwelt upon this objection at some length. The Judge, who knew nothing of the constitution, except that it was continually being quoted against all of his favorite projects, fidgeted about for some time, and at last jumped up to know if he might ask the gentleman a question. The latter said, “Yes,” and the Judge went on, “I’d like to know if the gintleman has ever personally seen the Catholic Protectoree?” “No, I haven’t,” said his astonished opponent. “Then, phwat do you mane by talking about its being unconstitootional? It’s no more unconstitootional than you are!” Then, turning to the house, with slow and withering sarcasm, he added, “The throuble wid the gintleman is that he okkipies what lawyers would call a kind of a quasi-position upon this bill,” and sat down amid the applause of his followers.

His rival, the Colonel, felt he had gained altogether too much glory from the encounter, and after the nonplussed countryman had taken his seat, he stalked solemnly over to the desk of the elated Judge, looked at him majestically for a moment, and said, “You’ll excuse my mentioning, sorr, that the gintleman who has just sat down knows more law in a wake than you do in a month; and more than that, Mike Shaunnessy, phwat do you mane by quotin’ Latin on the flure of this House, when you don’t know the alpha and omayga of the language!” and back he walked, leaving the Judge in humiliated submission behind him.

The Judge was always falling foul of the Constitution. Once, when defending one of his bills which made a small but wholly indefensible appropriation of State money for a private purpose, he asserted “that the Constitution didn’t touch little things like that”; and on another occasion he remarked to me that he “never allowed the Constitution to come between friends.”

The Colonel was at that time chairman of a committee, before which there sometimes came questions affecting the interests or supposed interests of labor. The committee was hopelessly bad in its composition, most of the members being either very corrupt or exceedingly inefficient. The Colonel generally kept order with a good deal of dignity; indeed, when, as not infrequently happened, he had looked upon the rye that was flavored with lemon-peel, his sense of personal dignity grew till it became fairly majestic, and he ruled the committee with a rod of iron. At one time a bill had been introduced (one of the several score of preposterous measures that annually make their appearance purely for purposes of buncombe), by whose terms all laborers in the public works of great cities were to receive three dollars a day—double the market price of labor. To this bill, by the way, an amendment was afterwards offered in the house by some gentleman with a sense of humor, which was to make it read that all the inhabitants of great cities were to receive three dollars a day, and the privilege of laboring on the public works if they chose; the original author of the bill questioning doubtfully if the amendment “didn’t make the measure too sweeping.” The measure was, of course, of no consequence whatever to the genuine laboring men, but was of interest to the professional labor agitators; and a body of the latter requested leave to appear before the committee. This was granted, but on the appointed day the chairman turned up in a condition of such portentous dignity as to make it evident that he had been on a spree of protracted duration. Down he sat at the head of the table, and glared at the committeemen, while the latter, whose faces would not have looked amiss in a rogues’ gallery, cowered before him. The first speaker was a typical professional laboring man; a sleek, oily little fellow, with a black mustache, who had never done a stroke of work in his life. He felt confident that the Colonel would favor him,—a confidence soon to be rudely shaken,—and began with a deprecatory smile:

“Humble though I am——”

Rap, rap, went the chairman’s gavel, and the following dialogue occurred:

Chairman (with dignity). “What’s that you said you were, sir?”

Professional Workingman (decidedly taken aback). “I—I said I was humble, sir?”

Chairman (reproachfully). “Are you an American citizen, sir?”

P. W. “Yes, sir.”

Chairman (with emphasis). “Then you’re the equal of any man in this State! Then you’re the equal of any man on this committee! Don’t let me hear you call yourself humble again! Go on sir!”

After this warning the advocate managed to keep clear of the rocks until, having worked himself up to quite a pitch of excitement, he incautiously exclaimed, “But the poor man has no friends!” which brought the Colonel down on him at once. Rap, rap, went his gavel, and he scowled grimly at the offender while he asked with deadly deliberation:

“What did you say that time, sir?”

P. W. (hopelessly). “I said the poor man had no friends, sir.”

Chairman (with sudden fire). “Then you lied, sir! I am the poor man’s friend! so are my colleagues, sir!” (Here the rogues’ gallery tried to look benevolent.) “Speak the truth, sir!” (with sudden change from the manner admonitory to the manner mandatory). “Now, you sit down quick, or get out of this somehow!”

This put an end to the sleek gentleman, and his place was taken by a fellow-professional of another type—a great, burly man, who would talk to you on private matters in a perfectly natural tone of voice, but who, the minute he began to speak of the Wrongs (with a capital W) of Labor (with a capital L), bellowed as if he had been a bull of Bashan. The Colonel, by this time pretty far gone, eyed him malevolently, swaying to and fro in his chair. However, the first effect of the fellow’s oratory was soothing rather than otherwise, and produced the unexpected result of sending the chairman fast asleep sitting bolt upright. But in a minute or two, as the man warmed up to his work, he gave a peculiarly resonant howl which waked the Colonel up. The latter came to himself with a jerk, looked fixedly at the audience, caught sight of the speaker, remembered having seen him before, forgot that he had been asleep, and concluded that it must have been on some previous day. Hammer, hammer, went the gavel, and—

“I’ve seen you before, sir!”

“You have not,” said the man.

“Don’t tell me I lie, sir!” responded the Colonel, with sudden ferocity. “You’ve addressed this committee on a previous day!”

“I’ve never—” began the man; but the Colonel broke in again:

“Sit down, sir! The dignity of the chair must be preserved! No man shall speak to this committee twice. The committee stands adjourned.” And with that he stalked majestically out of the room, leaving the committee and the delegation to gaze sheepishly into each other’s faces.

OUTSIDERS.

After all, outsiders furnish quite as much fun as the legislators themselves. The number of men who persist in writing one letters of praise, abuse, and advice on every conceivable subject is appalling; and the writers are of every grade, from the lunatic and the criminal up. The most difficult to deal with are the men with hobbies. There is the Protestant fool, who thinks that our liberties are menaced by the machinations of the Church of Rome; and his companion idiot, who wants legislation against all secret societies, especially the Masons. Then there are the believers in “isms,” of whom the women-suffragists stand in the first rank. Now I have always been a believer in woman’s rights, but I must confess I have never seen such a hopelessly impracticable set of persons as the woman-suffragists who came up to Albany to get legislation. They simply would not draw up their measures in proper form; when I pointed out to one of them that their proposed bill was drawn up in direct defiance of certain of the sections of the Constitution of the State he blandly replied that he did not care at all for that, because the measure had been drawn up so as to be in accord with the Constitution of Heaven. There was no answer to this beyond the very obvious one that Albany was in no way akin to Heaven. The ultra-temperance people—not the moderate and sensible ones—are quite as impervious to common sense.

A member’s correspondence is sometimes amusing. A member receives shoals of letters of advice, congratulation, entreaty, and abuse, half of them anonymous. Most of these are stupid; but some are at least out of the common.

I had some constant correspondents. One lady in the western part of the State wrote me a weekly disquisition on woman’s rights. A Buffalo clergyman spent two years on a one-sided correspondence about prohibition. A gentleman of Syracuse wrote me such a stream of essays and requests about the charter of that city that I feared he would drive me into a lunatic asylum; but he anticipated matters by going into one himself. A New Yorker at regular intervals sent up a request that I would “reintroduce” the Dongan charter, which had lapsed two centuries before. A gentleman interested in a proposed law to protect primaries took to telegraphing daily questions as to its progress—a habit of which I broke him by sending in response telegrams of several hundred words each, which I was careful not to prepay.

There are certain legislative actions which must be taken in a purely Pickwickian sense. Notable among these are the resolutions of sympathy for the alleged oppressed patriots and peoples of Europe. These are generally directed against England, as there exists in the lower strata of political life an Anglophobia quite as objectionable as the Anglomania of the higher social circles.

As a rule, these resolutions are to be classed as simply bouffe affairs; they are commonly introduced by some ambitious legislator—often, I regret to say, a native American—who has a large foreign vote in his district. During my term of service in the Legislature, resolutions were introduced demanding the recall of Minister Lowell, assailing the Czar for his conduct towards the Russian Jews, sympathizing with the Land League and the Dutch Boers, etc., etc.; the passage of each of which we strenuously and usually successfully opposed, on the ground that while we would warmly welcome any foreigner who came here, and in good faith assumed the duties of American citizenship, we had a right to demand in return that he should not bring any of his race or national antipathies into American political life. Resolutions of this character are sometimes undoubtedly proper; but in nine cases out of ten they are wholly unjustifiable. An instance of this sort of thing which took place not at Albany may be cited. Recently the Board of Aldermen of one of our great cities received a stinging rebuke, which it is to be feared the aldermanic intellect was too dense fully to appreciate. The aldermen passed a resolution “condemning” the Czar of Russia for his conduct towards his fellow-citizens of Hebrew faith, and “demanding” that he should forthwith treat them better; this was forwarded to the Russian Minister, with a request that it be sent to the Czar. It came back forty-eight hours afterwards, with a note on the back by one of the under-secretaries of the legation, to the effect that as he was not aware that Russia had any diplomatic relations with this particular Board of Aldermen, and as, indeed, Russia was not officially cognizant of their existence, and, moreover, was wholly indifferent to their opinions on any conceivable subject, he herewith returned them their kind communication.[7]

In concluding I would say, that while there is so much evil at Albany, and so much reason for our exerting ourselves to bring about a better state of things, yet there is no cause for being disheartened or for thinking that it is hopeless to expect improvement. On the contrary, the standard of legislative morals is certainly higher than it was fifteen years ago or twenty-five years ago. In the future it may either improve or retrograde, by fits and starts, for it will keep pace exactly with the awakening of the popular mind to the necessity of having honest and intelligent representatives in the State Legislature.[8]

I have had opportunity of knowing something about the workings of but a few of our other State legislatures: from what I have seen and heard, I should say that we stand about on a par with those of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Illinois, above that of Louisiana, and below those of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Wyoming, as well as below the national legislature at Washington. But the moral status of a legislative body, especially in the West, often varies widely from year to year.

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