Part 5 (1/2)
held out, and where I was introduced as a ”white Chinee,” or as a ”white c.h.i.n.k,” and ”my friend.” I wish I had kept a list of the drinks the ”Boss” took and the cigars he smoked _per diem_. Perhaps it is as well I did not; you would not believe me. I was always ”John” to this crowd, that was made up of laboring people in the main, of whom Irish and Germans predominated. The ”Boss” was what they called a ”bulldozer.” If a man differed with him he tried to talk or drink him down; if it was an enemy and he became too disputatious, he would knock him out with his fist. In this way he had acquired a reputation as a ”slugger,” that counted for much in such an a.s.semblage, and he confided to me one evening that it was the easiest way to ”stop talk,” and that if he ”laid down,” the opposition would walk off with all his ”people.” He was ”Boss” because he was the boss slugger, the best executive, the best drinker and smoker, the best ”persuader,” and the best public speaker in his ward. So you see he had a variety of talents. In China I can imagine such a man being beheaded as a pirate in a few weeks; this would be as good an excuse as any; yet men like this have grown and developed into respectable persons in New York and other cities.
”For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the Heathen Chinee is peculiar,” but I doubt if he is more so than the political system of the United States, where every man is supposed to be free, but where a few men in each town own everything and everybody politically. The American thinks he is free, but he has in reality no more freedom than the Englishman; in fact, I am inclined to think that the latter is the freest of them all, and I doubt if too much freedom is good for man.
Politics in America is a profession, a trade, a science, a perfect system by which one or two men run or control millions. Politics means the attainment of political power and influence, which mean office. Some men are in politics for the love of power, some for spoils (”graft” they call it in slang), and some for the high offices. In America there are two large parties, the Republican and the Democratic. Then there are the Labor, Prohibition (non-drinking), and various other parties, which, in the language of politics, ”cut no ice.” The real issues of a party are often lost sight of. The Republicans may be said to favor a high tariff; the Democrats a low tariff or free trade; and when there is not sufficient to amuse the people in these, then other reasons for being a Democrat or a Republican are raised, and a platform is issued. Lately the Democrats have espoused ”free silver,” and the Republicans have ”buried” them. The Democrats are now trying to invent some new ”platform”; but the Republicans appear to have included about all the desirable things in their platform, and hence they win.
In a small town one or two men are known as ”bosses.” They control the situation at the primaries; they manage to get elected and keep before the people. Generally they are natural leaders, and fill some office.
When the senator comes to town they ”escort” him about and advise him as to the votes he may expect. Sometimes the ward man is the postmaster, sometimes a national congressman, again a State senator; but he is always in evidence, and before the people, a good speaker and talker and the ”boss.” Every town has its Republican and Democratic ”boss,” always striving to increase the vote, always striving for something. The larger the city, the larger the ”boss,” until we come to a city like New York, where we find, or did find, Boss Tweed, who absolutely controlled the political situation for years.
This means that he was in politics, and manipulated all the offices in order to steal for himself and his friends; this is of public record. He was overthrown or exposed by the citizens, but was followed by others, who manipulated the affairs of the city for money. Offices were sold; any one who had a position either bought it or paid a percentage for it.
Gambling-dens and other ”resorts” paid large sums to ”sub-bosses,” who become rich, and if the full history of some of the ”bosses” of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, or any great American city could be exposed, it would show a state of affairs that would display the American politician in a dark light. Repeatedly the machinations of the politicians have been exposed, yet they doubtless go on in some form.
And this is true to some extent of the Government. The honor of no President has been impugned; they are men of integrity, but the enormous appointing power which they have is a mere form; they do not and could not appoint many men. The little ”boss” in some town desires a position.
He has been a spy for the congressman or senator for years, and now aspires to office. He obtains the influence of the senator and the congressman, and is supported by a pet.i.tion of his friends, and the President names him for the office, taking the senator for his sponsor.
If the man becomes a grafter or thief, the President is attacked by the opposition.
In a large city like New York each ward will have its ”boss,” who will report to a supreme ”boss,” and by this system, often pernicious, the latter acquires absolute control of the situation. He names the candidates for office, or most of them, and is all powerful. I have met a number of ”bosses,” and all, it happened, were Irish; indeed, the Irish dominate American politics. One, a leader of Tammany in New York, was a most preposterous person, well dressed, but not a gentleman from any standpoint; ignorant so far as education goes, yet supremely sharp in politics. Such a man could not have led a fire brigade in China, yet he was the leader of thousands, and controlled Democratic New York for years. He never held office, I was told, yet grew very rich.
The Republican ”boss” was a tall, thin, United States senator. I was also introduced to him--a Mephistophelian sort of an individual--to me utterly without any attraction; but I was informed that he carried the vote of the Republican party in his pocket. How? that is the mystery. If you desired office you went to him; without his influence one was impotent. Thousands of office-holders felt his power, hated him, perhaps, but did not dare to say it.
The ”boss” controls the situation, gives and ”takes,” and the other citizens get the satisfaction of thinking they are a free people. In reality, they are political slaves, and the ”boss,” ”sub-boss,” and the long line of smaller ”bosses” are their masters. Very much the same situation is seen in national politics. The party is controlled by a ”boss,” and at the present this personage is a millionaire, named Hanna, said to be an honest, upright man, with a genius for political diplomacy, a puller of wires, a maker of Presidents, having virtually placed President McKinley where he is. This man I met. Many of the politicians called him ”Uncle Mark.” He has a familiar way with reporters. He is a man of good size, with a face of a rather common type, with very large and protruding ears, but two bright, gleaming eyes, that tell of genius, force, intelligence, power, and executive talents of an exalted order. I recall but one other such pair of eyes, and those were in the head of Senator James G. Blaine, whom I saw during my first visit to America. Hanna is famous for his _bonhomie_, and is a fine story-teller. Indeed, unless a man can tell stories he had better remain out of politics, or rather he will never get into politics.
As an outsider I should say that the power of the ”boss” was due to the fact that the best cla.s.ses will have none of him, as a rule (I refer to the ordinary ”boss”), and as a consequence he and his henchmen control the situation. I think I am not overstating the truth when I say that every city in the United States has been looted by the politicians of various parties. It is of public record that Philadelphia, Chicago, St.
Louis, and New York citizens have repeatedly risen and shown that the city was being robbed in the most bare-handed manner. Bribery and corruption have been found to exist to-day in the entire system, and if the credit of the republic stands on its political _morale_ this vast union of States is a colossal failure, as it is being pillaged by politicians. Every ”boss” has what are termed ”heelers,” one function of whom is to buy votes and do other work in the interest of ”reform.” A friend told me that he spent election day in the office of a candidate for Congress in a certain Western town, and the candidate had his safe heaped full of silver dollars. All day long men were coming and going, each taking the dollars to buy votes. By night the supply was exhausted, and the man defeated. I expressed satisfaction at this, but my friend laughed; the other fellow who won paid more for votes, he said. I was told that all the great senatorial battles were merely a question of dollars; the man with the largest ”sack” won.
On the other hand, there are senators who not only never paid for a vote but never expressed a wish to be elected. The foreign vote--Italians and others--are swayed by cash considerations; the negroes are bought and sold politically. The ”bosses” handle the money, and the senators consider it as ”expenses,” and doubtless do not know that some of it has been used to influence legislators. The Americans have a remarkable network of laws to prevent fraudulent voting. Each candidate in some States is required to swear to an expense account, yet the wary politician, with his ”ways that are dark,” evades the law. The entire system, the control of the political fortunes of 80,000,000 Americans, is in the hands of a small army of political ”bosses,” some of whom, had they figured as grafters in ”effete” China, would have been beheaded without mercy.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Slang for citizens.
[10] Slang for information, facts.
[11] Mexican hash in corn-husk.
CHAPTER XII
EDUCATION IN AMERICA
A fundamental idea with the American is to educate children. This is carried to the extent of making it an offense not to send those above a certain age to school, while State or town officers, called ”truant police,” are on the alert to arrest all such children who are not in school. The following was told me by a Government official in Was.h.i.+ngton, who had obtained it from a well-known literary man who witnessed the incident. The literary man was invited to visit a Boston school of the lower grade, where he found the teacher, an attractive woman, engaged in teaching a cla.s.s of ”youngsters,” the progeny of the working cla.s.s. After the visitor had listened to the recitations for some time, he remarked to the teacher, ”How do you account for the neatness and cleanliness of these children?” ”Oh, I insist upon it,” was the reply. ”The Board of Education does not antic.i.p.ate all the desiderata, but I make them come clean and make it a part of the course;” then rising and tapping on the table, she said, ”Prepare for the sixth exercise.” All the children stood up. ”One,” said the teacher, whereupon each pupil took out a clean cloth handkerchief. ”Two,” counted the teacher, and with one concerted blast every pupil blew his or her nose in clarion notes. ”Three,” came again after a few seconds, and the handkerchiefs were replaced. At ”four” the student body sank back to their seats without even smiling, or without having ”cracked a smile.”
You could search the world over and not find a prototype. It goes without saying that the teacher was a wit and wag, but the lesson of handkerchiefs and their use was inculcated.
Education is a part of the scheme to make all Americans equal. A more splendid _system_ it is impossible to conceive. Every possible facility is afforded the poorest family to educate their children. Public schools loom up everywhere, and are increased as rapidly as the children, so there is no excuse for ignorance. The schools are graded, and there is no expense or fee. The parents pay a tax, a small sum, those who have no children being taxed as well as those who have many. There are schools to train boys to any trade; normal free schools to make teachers; night schools for working boys; commercial schools to educate clerks; s.h.i.+p schools to train sailors and engineers. Then come the great universities, in part free, with all the splendid paraphernalia, some being State inst.i.tutions and others memorials of dead millionaires.
Then there are the great technical schools, as well as universities (where one can study Chinese, if desired). There are schools of art, law, medicine, nature, forestry, sculpture; schools to teach one how to write, how to dress, how to eat, and how to keep well; schools to teach one how to write advertis.e.m.e.nts, to cultivate the memory, to grow strong; schools for shooting, boxing, fencing; schools for nurses and cooks; summer schools; winter schools.
And yet the American is not profoundly educated. He has too much within his reach. I have been distinctly surprised at crude specimens I have met who were graduates of great universities. The well-educated Englishman, German, and American are different things. The American is far behind in the best sense, which I am inclined to think is due to the teachers. Any one can get through a normal school and become a teacher who can pa.s.s the examination, and I have seen some singular instances. If all the teachers were obliged to pa.s.s examinations in culture, refinement, and the art of _conveying_ knowledge, there would be a falling of pedagogic heads. The free and over education of the poor places them at once above their parents. They are free, and the daughter of a ditch laborer, whose wife is a floor scrubber, upon being educated is ashamed of her parents, learns to play the piano, apes the rich, and is at least unhappy.
The result is, there remains no peasant cla.s.s. The effect of education on the country boy is to make him despise the farm and go to the city, to become a clerk and ape the fas.h.i.+ons of the wealthy at six or eight dollars a week. He has been educated up to the standard of his ”boss”
and to be his equal. The overeducation of the poor is a heartless thing.