Harper's Weekly Editorials by Carl Schurz. Schurz Carl
movements were grievously impaired. At last the separation of municipal from national and State elections has been effected, for the very purpose of giving non-partisan action at municipal elections a free field. And now, when we have that free field, the good citizens of New York should abstain from taking advantage of it, because the party machines do not, what they were never expected to do—voluntarily lay down their arms, but threaten to continue the fight for their accustomed plunder? Thus to abstain under such circumstances would be self-stultification with a decided flavor of imbecility.
The duty of the public-spirited citizens of New York who are sincere and earnest in their desire for good municipal government seems to be a very plain one. The call for the formation of a Citizens' Union, signed by a large number of respectable persons, many of whom enjoy the confidence of the whole community for uprightness and good faith, furnishes a suitable rallying-point for a strong organization. The work of organizing should be pushed forward without delay, and as soon as the organization is sufficiently representative of the various classes of our population it should proceed to action. What can it do? It can designate candidates for the municipal offices with sole regard to the duties to be performed. It can select for each place a person of whom every fair-minded citizen will have to admit that he is the man for the place, and that for the public interest no better choice could be made. It can put these candidates before the people—the earlier the better—appealing to all good citizens to support them for the general good of the community, and then leave the party machines to support or oppose them as they see fit.
It may be said that this would be a bold proceeding; and so it may appear at first sight. But what was the separation of the municipal from the national and State elections designed for, if not for just this kind of action? What will that separation be worth, if, after all, the public-spirited citizens are to wait for the party machines to put before them the old-accustomed choice between evils, and then tamely to accept that choice? Besides, the course of action here proposed is by no means as rash and adventurous as it may look to timid souls. Neither of the two party machines in the city of New York is in a very sanguine state of mind. Both are nervously anxious as to what the future may have in store for them, and there is but little doubt that a bold and determined advance of the non-partisan movement is the thing they fear most. Of this the wails uttered by the spokesmen of the machines when the call of the Citizens' Union came first before the public gave ample evidence. That the non-partisan movement, too, will have to meet its dangers is not denied. But the greatest of these dangers would be a lack of courage in its own conduct.
Carl Schurz.
THE PRESIDENT ON ECONOMY.
President McKinley's inaugural address has been received by his own party with warm applause, and by fair-minded citizens not of his party with hearty praise of some of its utterances and with respectful and kindly criticism of others. There is, however, one point in it which seems to have failed to attract the attention and to obtain the commendation it deserves. In discussing the subject of government finance the President said: “Economy is demanded in every branch of the government at all times, but especially in periods like the present of depression in business and distress among the people. The severest economy must be observed in all public expenditures, and extravagance stopped whenever it is found and prevented wherever in the future it may be developed.” And further on he added, “The depressed condition of industry on the farm and in the mine and factory has lessened the ability of the people to meet the demands upon them, and they rightfully expect that not only a system of revenue shall be established that will secure the largest income with the least burden, but that every means will be taken to decrease, rather than increase, our public expenditures.”
President McKinley certainly uttered these sentiments in perfect sincerity. Neither would he have done so had he not seen an urgent reason for it. He had in mind the vicious practices for some time in vogue. He virtually denounced the reckless extravagance that has of late been generally prevailing. Nor can he have been in doubt as to where the responsibility for that extravagance rests. Certainly President Cleveland was not responsible, for he never failed to do all in his power to stem the reckless tide, and exposed himself to unmeasured obloquy for so doing. Neither were the Democrats in Congress alone responsible, although they unquestionably shared the guilt. No fair-minded observer of current events will deny that the Republicans who began the series of “billion Congresses,” and who controlled the last House of Representatives and the Senate, bear the greatest part of that responsibility. It was, therefore, mainly to the Republicans in Congress that President McKinley addressed the reproof and the admonition. What will they answer? What they answered when President Cleveland addressed to them similar admonitions we know. They treated them as stale commonplaces to be contemptuously repelled. They told the President that they were “tired of this kind of impertinent lecturing,” and then went on voting down his vetoes and spending the people's money right and left with a recklessness hardly knowing any bounds.
Mr. Cannon, the chairman of the Committee of Appropriations of the late House of Representatives, tries in vain to shift the responsibility upon the late Democratic administration, on the ground that the estimates submitted to Congress by the departments asked even for more money than was afterwards granted; for every well-informed person knows that the estimates, being made on the basis of existing practices, often contain many items which the heads of departments themselves do not approve of, and which they hope to see cut down or thrown out. It is equally useless to suggest as a remedy for the prevailing extravagance, which he admits, a different arrangement of the appropriation bills and the exclusion from them of private claims. The rules of the House and of the Senate have not been the real cause of the disease, and a mere reform of those rules, however desirable, will not be a sufficient remedy. The true cause has been the prevalence of the spirit of small politics among our members of Congress—their eager endeavor to win cheap popularity be getting appropriations to be expended in their districts or States, whether useful or not; or to make themselves “solid” with this or that class of people by putting public money into their pockets; or to give their party control of large public expenditures which may be turned to its advantage; or to exhibit themselves as glorious patriots by providing for costly and superfluous armaments. Hence the scandals of the river and harbor bills, squandering millions for absurd schemes; hence the large sums spent for public buildings in places where they are unnecessary; hence the pension bills going far beyond the just and generous provision for our war veterans which every good citizen is in favor of, and serving more to incite fraud and to enrich scheming pension attorneys than to support worthy defenders of the country; hence the lavish appropriations for war-ships which we do not need, many of which will be rendered obsolete by new contrivances almost as soon as their construction is finished, and which eventually will call for a large increase of our naval force in officers and men, thus entailing heavy expense for the future. Such is the cause of the extravagance which President McKinley denounces as too heavy for the people to bear, and which he admonishes Congress to supplant with the “severest economy.” It is very evident that this evil cannot be remedied by a mere change of rules, ever so wise. It will require a change of spirit.
It is not improbable that the influence which worked for wastefulness before will also be potent in the present Congress. If the President means to act according to his words, the struggle will begin at once. He will find, as many of his predecessors have found, that the most difficult task of an Executive mindful of his responsibilities is not so much to baffle his opponents as to restrain his party friends. Indeed, it is by giving due heed to the criticism of the opposition and by denying unrighteous demands coming from his friends that the character of the man in power has to prove itself worthy of public confidence. This is the true test. At the threshold of his administration President McKinley may be met by a trial apt to be decisive for his whole official term. President Cleveland declined to sign three appropriation bills passed by the late Congress, because they were full of just that extravagance which President McKinley has so sharply arraigned; and a fourth failed to pass because the two Houses could not agree upon some schemes of expenditure. It is devoutly to be wished that the Republicans in Congress, moved